Whale Hybridization

New studies have found that hybridization between two of the largest animals on earth- the Blue Whale and the Fin Whale, is far more common than previously thought. What's more, some of these hybrids have also found to be fertile, indicating the occurrence to be beneficial particularly for the endangered Blue Whale! 

Cartoon for Roundglass Sustain. 

Iceland Resumes Whaling

Iceland resumes whaling after temporary ban, despite public outcry and worldwide condemnation. Cartoon from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine.

Marine Biologist Dance Parties

I’ve never really been to a marine biologists’ dance party, but I’m sure this is how those weirdos celebrate!

Listen to some soulful Humpback Whale music here as you read this piece from my column with Roundglass Sustain. 

Whale Deaths and Wind Energy

Fossil fuel lobbies are using whale deaths as a ruse to protest against wind energy in the USA! I normally don’t make flatulence jokes on principle, but this time the pun was too hard to resist. Comic for DW Environment. Read more on DW here.

Wondering where you’ve seen this whale before? It’s the ‘Right Whale with Righteous Opinions’ from my earlier comic on fishing and sustainability :)

False Bay : Illustration for Save Our Seas

(click on the image for a larger view)

Wedged between the Cape Peninsula and the Hottentot Hollands Mountain of Western Cape, South Africa, the False Bay is a magical ecosystem, teeming with some spectacular and endemic marine life! From African Penguins and Fur Seals to Right Whales and Great White Sharks, this star studded bay is a jewel of the Great African Kelp Forest.

Illustration for Save Our Seas Foundation's gorgeous Shark Education Centre at Kalk Bay, Cape Town. The illustration can be downloaded on their website here. Thanks to Jade Schulz and the team at SOSF for the opportunity!

Revillagigedo Archipelago National Park

(Click on the images for a larger preview)

Revillagigedo, an archipelago of volcanic islands in Mexico, is a haven for island endemic wildlife and marine fauna, and North America's largest no-take marine protected area! Illustration for Save our Seas Foundation, which can be downloaded as a PDF from their website.

Thanks to SOSF for their continued association! Here are some close-up snippets from the illustration:

The Antarctic Peninsula : Illustration for Save Our Seas Foundation

(click on the image for a larger view)

Commonly perceived as uninhabitable and desolate, the Antarctic Peninsula is actually teeming with south polar wildlife, most of which is threatened by climate change today. A unique ecosystem where all food is derived from the sea, the biome harbours creatures as tiny as krill (that form the core of the food web) and as large as the Blue Whale! The terrestrial wildlife of the Antarctic Peninsula is no less splendorous, with five species of penguin, and seal diversity that ranges from the penguin-hunting Leopard Seals, to the gigantic Southern Elephant Seals that can dive upto 1550m to hunt squids! The illustration focuses on how life in Antarctica revolves around krill: Humpback Whales bubble net them, Blue Whales lunge-feed on them, Crabeater Seals have evolved specialized dentitions to hunt them, penguins dive after them, and storm petrels skim the sea surface with their feet in search of them! And if you're wondering why the ice at the penguin colonies looks pink, that too is from the colour that a krill based diet imparts to their poop!

A huge thanks to Save Our Seas Foundation for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to illustrate Antarctica in conjunction with scientists from Penguin Watch working in the region. The illustration will soon be auctioned to Antarctic tour ships to raise money for conservation efforts by SOSF and Penguin Watch. Read the article on the Antarctic Peninsula on their website here. 

Galapagos Marine Reserve Habitat Illustration

(Click on the image for a larger preview)

Easily one of the top 10 in my list of places to see before I die, the Galapagos Archipelago, besides being the very cradle of the evolution of evolutionary science, houses a magical range of biodiversity! And thanks to the Save Our Seas Foundation, I got an opportunity to illustrate what a typical panorama at the Galapagos Marine Reserve looks like. From blood-sucking Vampire Finches to diving Boobies, from the algae-munching Marine Iguana to the cactus-loving Land Iguana, from tiny endemic catsharks to massive Humpback Whales; you'll find them all this gigantic illustration that appears along side a piece on Galapagos in the SOSF magazine. Find the magazine online here. 

Special thanks to Jade Schulz, Pelayo Salinas and James Lea from the Save our Seas Foundation for commissioning the piece and for guiding me through it. 

Ocean Zones: Illustration for Arastirmaci Cocuk

An illustration depicting the various zones of the ocean, done for the Turkish kids' magazine Arastirmaci Cocuk. Read their latest issue on the website here.

Prints of this poster in English are available on my webstore here, shipped worldwide. For orders within India, email me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmailcom . Sizes and prices for prints within India are as follows: 

A0: Rs. 3500 for the first copy, Rs. 3000 for the second copy onwards

A1: Rs. 3000 for the first copy, Rs. 2500 for the second copy onwards

A2: Rs. 1500 for the first copy, Rs. 1200 for the second copy onwards

A3: Rs. 500 for the first copy, Rs. 300 for the second copy onwards

Pygmy Blue Whales in the Indian Ocean

Nuclear bomb detectors placed near Chagos Islands detected whale sounds, which when analysed by a group of scientists from the University of New South Whales, led to the discovery of a new population of Pygmy Blue Whales in the Indian Ocean! Comic from my column with Sunday Mid-Day.

Unpopular but Right Opinions of the Right Whale

A Right Whale offers its two bits on marine conservation, this World Oceans Day. Comic from my column with Sunday Mid-Day.

Meet the Cookiecutter Shark

Meet the Cookiecutter Shark, known for its habit of gouging plugs of flesh out of the bodies of larger marine animals! Comic strip from my Sunday Mid-day column.

Rice's Whale

Meet the newest species of whale (yes, WHALE) discovered from the Gulf of Mexico in the US, the Rice's Whale, named in honour of cetologist Dale Rice. Comic from my column with The Hindu.

Killer Whale

The Killer Whale wasn't born a Killer Whale. Society made it one. 

I personally prefer the name Orca. Comic from my column with Sunday Mid-Day.

World Record by Marine Animals

From gigantic squids to virile barnacles, from deafening shrimps to immortal jellyfish- meet the world record holders of the sea! 

Comic  from my column with Saevus magazine this month. Prints are available only outside of India via my Redbubble store for now (printing and shipping of all my merchandise within India is suspended temporarily owing to the countrywide lockdown to tackle Coronavirus).

Great Bear Rainforest Habitat Illustration

One of the most unique landscapes on earth where temperate rainforests meet the sea, Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, Canada, is a mystical forest.  And this mystique transcends boundaries between land, water and air, and those between wildlife and native communities. The First Nations People of Canada that call the rainforest their home, have been fiercely safeguarding the forests from industrial logging and oil and gas companies. The rainforest is inhabited by many animals sacred to the First Nations People, such as the Spirit Bear (a rare sub-species of the American Black Bear in which some individuals are coloured white!), the Raven, the Bald Eagle, many species of Salmon, and of course, cetaceans like the Humpback and Fin Whales, and Orcas. As a result of rainforest meeting the sea, various interactions that are usually unheard of are witnessed here, such as enormous tracts of cedar and spruce meeting waters ruled by kelp forests, bears and wolves preying on spawning salmon, seals and sea otters bumping into wolverines and minks!

Other than its myriad flora and fauna, the illustration also depicts a First Nations couple in ethnic attire that celebrates the spirit of the animals they worship, veteran whale biologists Janie Wray and Hermann Meuter, who run the Cetacea Lab at Great Bear. Thanks to the Save Our Seas Foundation for commissioning the illustration.

Biodiversity of Coastal Maharashtra

An illustrated map of the coastal biodiversity of my home state, Maharashtra, done for WWF India's Mumbai office, and released at the recently concluded Coastwise Festival. A big thanks to WWF India's Mumbai team for commissioning the project!

Pregnant Whale

On plastic pollution of marine ecosystems from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Wildlife Photography Exhibitions Then and Now

Wildlife photography then and now. Happy World Oceans' Day.

(The seahorse clinging to the earbud pays reference to an actual image by photographer Justin Hofman.) Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

Blue Whales and the Blue Whale Challenge

Say no to the challenge, say yes to Blue Whales!