Ussuri Bat

If you're looking for a cozy winter retreat, log on to AirBnB, I mean, BatBnb, book your own private snowbank, and hibernate like the Ussuri Tube-nosed bat, one of the most cold tolerant mammals in the world! Fun-fact: BatBnb is actually a conservation movement that crafts bat houses for urban bats to rest in, aiming to raise the numbers of these natural pest controllers in urban environments! 

Cartoon for DW Environment. 

Birding in the Northern Plains in Winters

I have just returned from birdwatching in 7 degrees, and there couldn't be amore apt time for this cartoon to appear in my Roundglass Sustain column!

Ghost Tree

Meet the most sparkling tree of the Indian forest: the Ghost Tree (Sterculia urens)! Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain.

East Asian Australasian Flyway- Birdlife International

A set of cartoons done for Birdlife International and the East Asian Australasian Flyway partnership, to highlight the conservation threats faced by the bird species using this flyway. The birds featured in the cartoons include the Bar-tailed Godwit, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Black-faced Spoonbill, Baer's Pochard, Yellow-breasted Bunting, Far-eastern Curlew and Great Knot, all endangered due to habitat loss and hunting. 

Thanks to Yong Ding Li of Birdlife International for commissioning me for the project!

The Winter Visitor from the Caucasus

A 7 gram bird connecting two distant worlds. Isn't migration a truly wonderful phenomenon?

Do look out for that tiny green speck flitting about in your backyard tree this winter! A comic on migratory warblers from my column with Pune Mirror.

World Records by Migratory Birds

It's World Migratory Birds' Day! Did you know of these world records that migratory birds hold?

The comic appears in my Gocomics column today. Posters available on my webstore here. (For orders within India, mail me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com)

The Fantastic Arctic Fox

Meet the fantastic Arctic Fox! The comic appears in my column with Saevus magazine this month.

Prints available on my webstore here. For orders within India, mail me on rohanchakcartoonist@gmail.com

The Life of a Harp Seal

Life's tough being a Harp Seal! Here's a comic from my page with Arastirmaci Cocuk Merkezi, a Turkish children's magazine, that takes you through the life cycle of a Harp Seal. The Harp Seal is a earless seal native to the northern Atlantic and the Arctic Oceans.

The comic originally appears in Turkish in the January issue of Arastirmaci Cocuk Merkezi, brought out from Ankara. Prints on my webstore here. 

Caribou Facts for Christmas

Here's some quick trivia on Caribou or Reindeer to wish all Green Humour readers a merry Christmas! The comic appears in my column with Mid-Day today.

Prints available on my webstore here.

The Different Plumages of the Adult Male Ruff

It's Wader Month on Green Humour, and the Ruff is one special wader! Renowned for displaying marked sexual dimorphism, the male ruff engages in a variety of techniques of bagging a mate in a lek. While the non-breeding plumage of a male ruff is like that of a reeve's (a female ruff), three different breeding plumages exist among breeding males- the typical breeding adult, the 'faeder' and the 'satellite' male.

The comic appears in my column with The Hindu BLink today. Merry Christmas and happy birding!

Prints available on my webstore.

Little-known facts about grizzly hibernation

Did you know how insomniac grizzlies hibernate? Here's one from my Gocomics page today.

The Arctic Tern's migratory route

Here's to the kings of migration- the Arctic Terns. Covering about 80000 km each year on the wing, there's absolutely no stopping these birds! Published in Tinkle Digest this month.

Fathers' Day with the Emperor Penguin

There are numerous examples of dedicated fathers across the animal kingdom, and the Emperor Penguin is probably one of the best. The father incubates the egg in his brood pouch, balancing it on top of his feet for 64 days before it hatches! By the time the egg hatches, the dad would have fasted for around 115 days! Moreover, if the mother returns late from the sea (which she must leave for after laying the egg, in order to refill her depleted energy reserves) the male feeds the chick with crop milk (a curd-like substance comprised of protein and lipid) which is synthesized in a gland in his esophagus. 

Coincidentally as we celebrate Fathers' Day, the male Emperor Penguins at this time of the year are busy incubating their eggs, battling it out in the harsh Antarctic winter. Here's a Fathers' Day greeting for nature's superdads! 

(PS- I know it's a little late, but prints are available as A3 size posters :))

This work by Rohan Chakravarty is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Migrant Migraine!

Migration is an extremely gruelling journey, with most waders travelling thousands of miles to reach their breeding grounds. Stints and knots are among the waders that migrate for the longest distances. In a recent research, a Red Knot was recorded to have flown for six days and six nights non-stop, covering a distance of 5000 miles! Imagine the toll such a journey would take on their little bodies. This is the reason why birds need to fatten up before they embark on their epic expeditions.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Slumbe(a)r!

Unlike rodents or primates, hibernation in bears is a suppression of metabolic activity that occurs more or less independent of temperature changes. Some bears of the northernmost latitudes may go up to eight months without food and water, relying solely on the energy reserves in the body. Bears are also able to recycle proteins and urine in their bodies, allowing the bears to stop urinating for months and inhibit muscle atrophy.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.