More than a forest… a miracle The Sanjay Gandhi National Park is a vital source of water for the city of Mumbai, with the Tulsi and Vihar lakes located within its protected confines. Dr. Anish Andheria has known this city-forest … Read More
Dozens of Blue Tiger butterflies jostle for space on a few bruised leaves of rattlepod. Each square centimetre on these blackening, bleeding leaves is precious, enough for four claw-tipped legs and a proboscis. The claws scratch the leaf, the proboscis … Read More
“It is hard to believe that since life began nearly 3.8 billion years ago, 99 percent of all living things that have ever lived on Earth have become extinct. What we see today is just a minuscule 1 per cent … Read More
A large part of the Earth’s allure lies in the strange, invisible and seemingly bizarre connections that underlie everything from ecosystems to planetary motions! How deep these connections among nature’s creations run is anyone’s guess. We are only left to … Read More
It is hard to imagine large swathes of forests on land made up of anything other than plants, isn’t it? Just thinking of giant mushrooms sprouting from the earth, dwarfing everything else by a long shot seems like a scene … Read More
My new home overlooks an old cemetery. Surrounding the gold-plated finial atop the dome of a Sufi’s mausoleum in the centre of the cemetery are crowns of palm trees, interspersed with a mix of natives and exotics. Surrounded by a … Read More
We have no idea what lies frozen in the ice sheets and permafrost of the Arctic where temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the world. Last year in 2020, as the world was reeling from COVID-19, … Read More
Periyar’s maintenance engineers After walking the length and breadth of Periyar, Dr. Anish Andheria writes with both knowledge and passion about the array of wildlife that has made this tropical forest a home. From termites and dracos, to tigers and … Read More
I could smell the salty sea in her heavy breath, filled with exhaustion and the quiet pain of giving up. A full-grown Olive Ridley sea turtle, she was washed ashore a beach in Dahanu, a seaside town over a hundred … Read More
“The lifting of the snake’s head had caught my eye and it was not until the head had been raised some two or three feet from the ground and the hood expanded that I realised it was a hamadryad. It … Read More