Rohan Chakravarty's Blog, page 5

New Species of 2023

Newly discovered species from 2023 congratulate India's biologists for all the discoveries and rediscoveries made this year! Let's hope that our biologists will BRB with new ground-breaking science in 2024! Comic for Roundglass Sustain.

Plum headed Parakeet Make Up

Ever overdone your make-up and felt you resemble a Plum-headed Parakeet? Cartoon from my column with Roundglass Sustain.
Defying beauty stereotypes, it is the male Plum-headed Parakeet that likes loud make-up, while females prefer a subtle grey head!
The cartoon also ran as a caption contest on Roundglass's Instagram. Check out the winning entries here: 

The Nicobar Pigeon and the Dodo

Did you know that the Dodo's closest living relative lives in India? And that its genome may soon be used in the efforts to bring the Dodo back from extinction? And that its own existence, like all of Nicobar's other wildlife, is imperiled by the upcoming Nicobar Transshipment Terminal?
Comic from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine. 

Serotine Bats and Sex

A pair of Serotine bats recently made news after being recorded on a church camera making love (you read that right), albeit ‘non-conventionally’, making them the first known wild mammals to indulge in non-penetrative fertilization! I know you all might claim to be such ‘wild mammals’ too, but that discussion is for another day.

Comic from my column with Roundglass Sustain. Read more about the church footage from Castenray, Netherlands, leading to a scientific report on the Serotine bats here.

CPCL and the Chennai Oil Spill

The Chennai Petroluem Corporation Limited and the Chennai oil spill.

COP28 a Summary

A summary of all the 'phase-out' negotiations at the recently concluded COP 28 Dubai. Cartoon from my column with The Hindu Sunday Magazine.

American Bird Nomenclature

A controversy is brewing in the world of ornithology and birdwatching, with the American Ornithological Society's proposal to rename birds with problematic eponyms, as many of these names celebrate colonizers and white supremacists. While many young birders support the decision, some old-timers oppose it. The Scott's Oriole and the Audubon's Shearwater have given their verdict. What's yours?

Cartoon for DW Environment.

War Budgets versus Climate Budgets

War budgets versus climate budgets. Cartoon from my Gocomics gallery, also available royalty free on my Cartoonstock gallery. 

Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve

(click on the image for a larger view)
In my first project for the forest department of my home state, Maharashtra, I travelled to Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve last year to create this illustrated biodiversity map of the park, where Gond culture and heritage meet some of the most iconic wildlife of Central India, making it a jewel of the heartland. The richness of Madia Gond heritage reflects in the unique stone pillars used for relaying announcements during royal processions, still preserved within the tiger reserve. Nowhere else has the intertwining of nature and humankind been iconified as distinctively as in Tadoba, where sculptures of tigers chained with the victims of human animal conflict are placed commonly in the peripheries of villages surrounding the park.
While Tadoba's teak, ain and baheda forests offer refuge to tigers, leopards, sloth bears, dholes, honey badgers, small cats and a variety of herbivores like the Gaur and Sambar, its lakes are home to mugger crocodiles and a healthy population of the near-threatened Grey-headed Fish Eagle, making the reserve an eco-tourism hotspot. I hope that the map illustration succeeds in sensitizing state authorities about the biodiversity that the park abounds with, and in serving as a reminder of all that is threatened by the expansion of mining operations and roadways in the region. The map will be on display and available as souvenirs at the park's museums and interpretation centres.
A huge thanks to Deputy Director (Core) Mr. Nandkishore Kale for giving me this opportunity, and to my Prajakta Hushangabadkar, a field biologist working in Tadoba, for guiding me through the project.
Here are some snippets from the map:

Switzerland Wolf Culling

Peaceful Switzerland. Neutral Switzerland. WILD Switzerland! Cartoon from my column with The Hindu on Switzerland's controversial wolf cull, starring Environment Minister Albert Rosti. Amidst major efforts to rewild Europe, the concept of co-existence, like always, seems to be eluding the continent.