The amazing complexity of multicellular organisms arises from pure simplicity – a single cell. Organisms boast of their idiosyncratic morphologies which follow seemingly distinct paths but be it a human arm or a chicken leg, it all grows from a … Read More
Millions of years of evolution has gifted this planet with astonishing diversity of life forms. Insects in particular, which make up three fourths of all the world’s animal and plant species, come in staggering sizes, shapes and forms. Every insect … Read More
What if I told you that a carnivorous dinosaur even more ferocious and stronger than the Tyrannosaurus rex, once lived here in India? We had our very own “king lizard of the Narmada” or the “royal lizard” with a characteristic … Read More
Sea turtles have graced the oceans for millions of years, evolving resilience to countless challenges. But the dawn of the Anthropocene has brought newer, deadlier threats: millions of tons of plastic, destruction of nesting beaches, light pollution that disorients hatchlings … Read More
Every time I see a blue tiger moth, my mind travels to the forest of Matheran, a pocket-sized but incredibly biodiverse hill station a stone’s throw from Mumbai. Every time, I relish the memory of a crisp January morning spent … Read More
What if life on Earth is older than Earth itself, and arrived aboard an interstellar rock from within the unexplored hinterlands of our cosmos? Space rocks like asteroids and comets abound in our cosmos. Stars are forming and dying constantly … Read More
Mind boggling connections have emerged in the course of evolution of species. Innumerable species have established a multi-faceted range of partnerships with each other. There are mutualistic (or symbiotic) partnerships, as well as parasitic and commensal (an organism benefitting from … Read More
September of 2016. A brief break from the rains, a bit of sunshine. Mumbai’s Sanjay Gandhi National Park shimmered with various shades of green. Being a naturalist partial to the understory, I found myself in the Nagla Block, the northern … Read More
Those of us who co-occur with domestic felids either in the capacity of pets or tolerate their occasional visits to our abodes, know about their great affinity for fish. But we also know that they hate water and the thought … Read More
On rocky shores, we walk past them, oblivious. Tide pools are microcosms of the sea, teeming with life. From just a few inches to a few feet in depth and diameter, these shallow pools of seawater are found in the … Read More