Variety is the spice of humble moth’s sex life

Published Monday 22 December 2014

A small brown moth has one of the most complex sex lives in the insect world, new research has found.

The twilight courtship rituals of the gold swift moth (Phymatopus hecta) can be seen in June and July in forest glades and bracken patches all over Britain. 

Despite the insect’s unassuming appearance, a new study published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society reports a variety and complexity in its mating patterns and sexual positions worthy of an insect Kama Sutra.

Professor John Turner, Emeritus Professor in the University of Leeds’ School of Biology, said: “With most insects, you expect to find a fairly set mating process. In moths like this, you might see the female staying still, emitting a scent and then mating with the first male moth to arrive. 

“The love life of the gold swift moth is a veritable Kama Sutra of mating patterns and positions. Colleagues have commented that this is the most elaborate mating procedure known in any insect and I have certainly not observed anything to surpass it.”

Professor Turner identified an array of different courtship “dances”, with some individuals able to switch to alternative methods if their first gambits were frustrated:

• The female hangs from the foliage, emits a scent and mates with one of the males that arrive. This is a classic moth mating pattern. 

• The male hangs from foliage, the female flies to him and they mate. 

• A group of males forms a hovering  swarm. Females fly past and males fly out of the swarm to follow them. When the female lands by hanging under a leaf, a male lands next to her and mates. 

• A mutual courtship dance: a female flies up to a hovering male and they “dance” in the air together. 

• The male hangs from foliage and a female flies in and hangs some distance away, fanning her wings to propel scent toward him. The male tends to show no interest until the female flies over to “nudge” him. He then flies off and returns to mate with her. 

• The female flies at a hanging male, bumps into him, and lands a short distance away. The male then flies over the female and hangs fluttering next to her. Then the moths mate.

Professor Turner also observed frequent “fighting dances” between males and occasional “homoerotic” courtships, where males embarked on mating procedures with members of their own sex. He suggested that the latter might have been triggered by scent from nearby females confusing the males.

There were so many courtship patterns that categorising them became difficult. Professor Turner said: “I intervened on some occasions to stop the mating. The insects would pause and then resume using a different pattern. It started to look a bit like a human courtship, with the moths doing it every which way and having a whole range of tactics for attracting a mate.” 

There was also unexpected variety in the moths’ sexual positions. Unlike most insects, which stick rigidly to a single position, the gold swift moth had two approaches:

• The male hangs facing the female and reaches over to connect his abdomen to hers. Once they connect, he lets go, falling like a trapeze artist so that he is hanging upside down from his mate. He stays in this position until the following sunrise.

• The male hangs with his back to the female and bends his abdomen backwards. They twist round to connect their bodies and then untwist as he falls into the mating position.

Variations on the two main positions were also observed. 

The paper concludes that the complexity is evolutionarily stable and has probably persisted in the species for tens of thousands of years. An individual moth that limited its mating approaches—for instance, a female losing the ability to produce scent—would reduce its mating options.

A possible explanation for the complexity of the moth’s sex life may be the relative scarcity of its mating grounds, which means that both males and females congregate together in restricted areas. This confused environment may encourage the development of a variety of ways of finding a mate, using both visual and olfactory stimuli.

Professor Turner conducted the study during holidays in the north of Scotland.

He said: “I was doing the washing up and I looked out of the kitchen window to see all this happening in the vegetation in front of me. Over the next seven years, I studied it every time I came to Scotland. One of the reasons this has not been reported before may be that it happens in the twilight. There are not that many people looking at insects at that time: all the butterfly people have gone to the pub and the other moth people haven’t switched their torches on yet.”

Further information

Professor Turner is available for interview. Contact: University of Leeds press office on +44 113 343 4031 or email pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk.

The image is available on request.

©Scott Henderson. The University of Leeds would like to thank boatofgarten.com for helping to make the photograph available.

The full paper: John R. G. Turner, ‘The flexible lek: Phymatopus hecta the gold swift demonstrates the evolution of leking and male swarming via a hotspot (Lepidoptera, Hepialidae)’ is published in Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 2014 (URLhttp://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12411/pdf) and is available for download.

Original Post

New milestones for the Butterflies of India website

By Krushnamegh Kunte

I write with very exciting news. It was exactly five years ago in October-November 2009 that I started discussing the Butterflies of India website with friends and colleagues in India (I was in Boston those days). A couple of months later we had the first draft of the website online and by January 2011 we were running full steam. For me and perhaps for many of you, the past five years have yielded tremendous insights into butterfly distributions, seasonality, wing pattern variation and many other aspects of the natural history and biology of Indian butterflies through the images and observations that were shared on this ButterflyIndia yahoo group and then posted as a long-term record on the Butterflies of India website. We also reported several species of butterflies new to India, and dozens of rediscoveries. Overall, these five years have been very exciting times and remarkably productive in terms of advancing our current understanding of Indian butterflies. With considerable activity on this and various Facebook groups, much of which is increasingly leading to paper and online publications, it appears that things are now shaking after a decades-long stupor among Indian butterfly naturalists. The milestones that we have crossed recently on the Butterflies of India website, as evident from the 'BOI by the numbers', are indicative of this activity:

No. of species pages: 840
No. of lifecycle pages: 273
No. of identification keys: 5
Larval Host Plants: 209
No. of images: 18,114
No. of website visits: 7,00,517
No. of unique visitors Since 2010: 90,487

Recent species pages and images include, among many others, prominent contributions by Ashwini Bhatia, Rohan Lovalekar, Hemant Ogalekar and Milind Bhakare. We are looking forward to more. 

Check out the latest at: http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/history-of-species-pages-on-butterflies-of-india-website.

Dr. Kamal Bawa Gets Midori 2014 Prize For Biodiversity

WASHINGTON: An evolutionary Indian ecologist, Kamal Bawa has won the prestigious USD 100,000 Midori Prize for biodiversity for his pioneering research, including in climate change in the Himalayas.

Photo: Wikipedia

The AEON Environmental Foundation, Japan, established the Midori Prize for Biodiversity in 2010, which is given to only three individuals, who have made outstanding contributions to conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity at global, regional or local levels.

Mr Bawa, 75, would be receiving the award in October, 2014 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, at COP-12, when India, current chair of the Conference of Parties (COP-11) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), will pass the baton to Korea, according to a media release from ATREE.

He is also the president of Bangalore-based environmental research organization ATREE (Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment).

" He has woken up local and global audiences to the perils of the loss of our natural wealth and its associated cultural wealth," Ganesan Balachander, Director of ATREE said.

"The prize underscores the importance of biodiversity to humanity and an inclusive and multidimensional approach to biodiversity conservation that my own research programme have advocated during the past few decades," he said.

Mr Bawa, who has taught at the University of Massachusetts for more than 40 years, had also received international recognition as the recipient of the first Gunnerus Award in Sustainability Science, a major international prize, in 2012.

Story on NDTV

Zee News

Jagran Josh

India TV

Parthenos special issue on Odonates : Call for articles

As a part of DragonflyIndia's 10th anniversary, we will be publishing a special issue of Parthenos (Newsletter of DiversityIndia) on odonates. If you want to contribute, please send your article to Parthenos before 15 Septemeber 2014. It will be helpful to get title and abstract of your article in advance. 

The article should be in Times New Roman, font size 12, normal margin, text justified. For previous issues of Parthenos please click on - http://diversityindia.org/Parthenos/ 

For Parthenos 

Pankaj Koparde and Amol Patwardhan

Systematic documentation of Odonates in India

Over years we have been sharing lot of information, resources and records of Odonates on out community forums be it Yahoo, FB or other. We also attempted collecting data about Pantala migration using a form [http://diversityindia.org/dragon/]. Now we need to step up our efforts.

Members are gearing up for more serious data collection now and this was also discussed at length during the DragonflyIndia workshop at Nagpur. It will be great to kick start the campaign around the group anniversary, which is just a month away now.

There could be several ways to do this. One of the ideas is to start consciously using the biodiversity portals like India Biodiversity Portal [http://indiabiodiversity.org/] to post all our photographs in the form of records. The advantage is the data will be built for us and can be quickly retrieved anytime. Under the DragonflyIndia group we already have more than 950 such records posted. [http://indiabiodiversity.org/group/dragonflies_of_india/]

What we can do is all the members commit to post at least 10 records each and help identify or comment 10 records each. This will serve two purpose. First it will force all of us to be familiar with the portal and with say 100 members generate 1000 more records. These records could be of very common species too. They will help us start developing understanding of our Odonates. Let us all do it between today and 1st October 2014.

In case you are not familiar with IBP or iNaturalist, feel free to ask for help on the group itself.

• Original message thread on the Yahoo group.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Kaiser-i-Hind Teinopalpus imperialis imperialis from Arunachal Pradesh

By: Sanjay Sondhi

Here are photographic records of perhaps one of the rarest and most beautiful of Indian butterflies-the Kaiser-i-Hind Teinopalpus imperials imperialis on the IFB website.

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/sp/2845/Teinopalpus-imperialis

The credit for this goes to Reddy Bei, Range Forest Officer, Pange, Talle Wildlife Sanctuary. For those of who don’t know Reddy Bei-he is a wonderful, committed forest officer and has done terrific things at Talle WLS to support conservation and its protection.

A report in the Arunachal Times on 25 August 2014 which stated that the Kaiser-i-Hind been photographed for the first time in Arunachal Pradesh from Talle WLS prompted Reddy Bei to call me. He said that he had photographed the same butterfly from Talle in 2012. He sent me some wonderful images for confirming the identification and indeed it was the Kasier-i-Hind!

Congratulations to Reddy Bei for this sighting and photographs. And for those of you who have not visited, Talle beckons.

As a side, I spotted the Brown Gorgon Meandrusa lachinus at precisely the same location at Talle in September, a few years ago.

The 8th Indian Symposium of Odonatology and Tropical Biodiversity

The 8th Indian Symposium of Odonatology and Tropical Biodiversity
17-18 August 2014
Hislop College, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India

Moth enthusiasts seek to tap into citizen science to create inventory

People asked to click pictures of moths and upload them online

A colorful moth seen in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly garden in Hyderabad.— File Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

They outnumber butterflies by almost a hundred fold and they are everywhere: on forest foliage and in bulb-lit homes. Yet there is very little known about the ubiquitous moth, its incredible diversity and ecological role.

Now ‘IndiaMoths’, a group that has come together on the India Biodiversity Portal, hopes to tap into “citizen science” to create an inventory of these nocturnal insects. IndiaMoths is also the India data-partner to the National Moth Week that will be held around the world from July 19 to 27.

All you have to do is upload your images of moths, and basic information about the location onhttp://indiabiodiversity.org/group/indianmoths/species/list . Researchers will then add to this data with descriptive information on each moth species.

There isn’t yet a comprehensive field guide to the moths of India, said Rohit George, researcher with French Institute of Pondicherry. The British were enthusiastic observers of moths in India and much of the information available today is from the old British publications, he added.

Original Post

Preserving rice varieties for posterity

Rice diversity mapping has helped document over 300 varieties

Through a Participatory Rural Appraisal technique, volunteers collect information on the various rice varieties in villages.— FILE PHOTO: M.A. SRIRAM

A unique volunteer-driven effort to map the rice diversity of Karnataka has resulted in the documentation of more than 300 rice varieties.

The project, an ongoing process, does not entail government help and is born out of the deep-rooted desire of organic activists to celebrate the diversity of rice in the State and create a seed bank for posterity.

“The concept of documenting rice varieties in the State began almost 10 years ago. It coincided with the emergence of the ‘Save Our Rice Campaign’, a movement that spread across the country among farmer groups who rooted for indigenous rice varieties as they were suited for the local climate and soil conditions,” said Seema G. Prasad, State coordinator, Save Our Rice Campaign.

She told The Hindu that the emergence of the high-breed variety, promoted by the government, saw a large many farmers opting for it and this has led to mono-culture in the present times. “Hardly any farmer cultivates the high-yielding indigenous rice variety. As a result most rice varieties will be lost to posterity,” she said.
The mapping of rice varieties began when engineer-turned farmer Krishna Prasad, co-founder of Sahaja Samruddha, was determined to conserve as many rice varieties as possible and began networking with farmers. “We found that in each village there were a few farmers who were interested in the conservation of old rice varieties. Rice is not merely a crop but part of the cultural heritage of the land and its people. Some varieties have aromatic and medicinal properties and many proverbs and folk culture have evolved around them,” Mr. Prasad said.

Through a Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) technique, volunteers and farmers collected information on various rice varieties in each village. They obtained information from farmers belonging to the older generation on the yield and adaptability to local soil and climate.

“Thus began the concept of seed mapping. The Bangarkovi variety, mainly grown in Mysore, is now rare and difficult to come by,” Mr. Prasad explained.

The painstaking effort of rice mapping has led to the documentation of over 300 indigenous varieties of rice unique to the State.

These varieties are available to farmers for cultivation through Sahaja Samruddha, a network comprising nearly 2,000 farmers, including rice breeders, and 30 organisations which are part of the rice conservation programme.

Original Story

Slaughter of whale sharks on the rise

• 
  The HinduA file photo of a whale shark being slaughtered by fishermen at Kumbhabhishekam in Kakinada. — Photo: By Special Arrangement

According to records, in the past 13 months as many as 15 whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) have been killed in the Godavari region.

In a short span of 13 months, from February 2013, as many as 15 whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) have been slaughtered in the Godavari region. The figure is quite alarming, as the official records indicate that the number of giant fish being slaughtered in a period of 100 years from 1890 was 20. The whale shark is the biggest fish (largest living non-mammalian vertebrate) in the world reaching lengths of 40 feet (12 meters) or more and a weight of more than 21.5 metric tonnes.

Moreover, International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considers the species vulnerable as it is protected as Schedule-I species on a par with tiger under the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

This Act envisages award of stringent punishment including imprisonment up to seven years to those found guilty of poaching and illegal trading of this animal and its products.

It is a target fishery in many parts of the world. According to records, the fish was killed in large numbers in Gujarat during the 1990s. But, in the Godavari region, it is not target fishery. If it is caught, the massive fish is dragged to the land and slaughtered.

If this fish is caught, the fishermen lose fishing nets worth Rs.30,000 to Rs. 40,000, besides spending Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 5,000 on its cutting. As it has less meat and fin value than the other sharks, it fetches a meagre amount to the fishermen.

The fishermen, however, prefer to kill in the event of catching it. Members of fishermen community said one shark of 22 ft was sold for Rs.15,000 in Bhairavapalem last year.

Another 15ft shark was sold for Rs. 10,000 at Kumbhabhishekam in Kakinada in March this year.

No incentive

“Most of the fishermen are unaware of the provisions put in place by the government for protecting sharks. The fishermen are sure that they will any way lose their nets in the event of the mammoth caught in them. That is why they are resorting to kill it,” says P. Sathiyaselvam, conservation biologist of the EGREE Foundation.

In Gujarat, he said, fishermen are rewarded with a cash prize of Rs. 25,000 if they release the giant fish from the net whenever caught in the net.

Emulating the scheme, the foundation launched a pilot project in the district and provided log books to 52 mechanised fishing boats.

“The main idea is to stop killing of sharks and assess the losses incurred to the fishermen. We are also working on the possibility of introducing the compensation scheme here,” Mr. Selvam explains.

Original Story 

National Moth Week: Indian Biodiversity Portal is data partner

By Thomas, India Biodiversity Portal

Just wanted to let you know that the India Biodiversity Portal, will be a data partner of the National Moth Week from this year (19th-27 July). Following up on success of the Neighborhood trees campaign that we organised last month, we would like to do something similar for the National Moth Week  in coordination with a wide network of individuals who may have a stake in moths of India.

The IndianMoths group on IBP will host the collection of the Moth observations during the NMW. We already have about 3000 observations on the group and many still require identification.

The immediate objective of the exercise would be to get citizens to contribute (upload) observations  of moths from across the country. However, unlike trees and other species groups, moths would require experts to help identify the observations. We are hoping to gather a group of moth experts that will be able to interact on the portal. 

In the run-up to the moth week (and afterwards), we are hoping to be able to get such experts to contribute towards moth species pages. In addition, they can also contribute checklists of moths from various regions, moth-related documents and also upload observations too.

We hope that in time, the portal will help aggregate enough content and information on moths that will be beneficial to anyone looking for open information on the moths of India. 

We are also building a system that allows curators to curate content within species pages. We will also shortly have a name curation interface that will allow curators to build a species list for India by curating species names that come in to the portal from various sources (mapping accepted names to common names, synonyms, subspecies, adding classifications etc.). All these efforts we hope, will help to build a common platform for moth experts of the country to interact upon and curate information on. 

We request you to sign up on the portal (if you haven't already) and help in any way you can to aggregate and curate content on moths. If you have any kind of data that you would like to upload please do so directly or let us know so that we can help if needed.

The India Biodiversity Portal

ᐧ

Butterflies of India crosses 800 species pages and 265 lifecycles

On that note, I am happy to announce that we have just crossed the 800 species pages mark on the Butterflies of India website. This has been long overdue but we were busy with other things in the past few months so it took some time. But now it's done. In the slow but steady march of the last 30-40 species pages leading up to the 800th species page (and beyond), we have had many exciting discoveries and records reported on the website and quickly made available to the larger butterfly-watching community soon after the discoveries. Some of the more exciting species pages have been in the following genera:

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/441-Lethe-dp3

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/470-Celaenorrhinus-dp3

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/276-Choaspes-dp3

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/tx/313-Scobura-dp3

And some specific species:

Creteus cyrina Hewitson, 1876 – Nonsuch Palmer
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/291-Creteus/Creteus-cyrina

Acupicta delicatum de Nicéville, 1887 – Dark Tinsel
http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/#!/sp/2828/Acupicta-delicatum 

See the full and current listing of species on the website at:

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/history-of-species-pages-on-butterflies-of-india-website

There are also lots of early stages, especially some new ones by Tarun Karmakar, Saji and Paresh, and by Ashok's friends:

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/lifecycles-on-butterflies-of-india-website

And of course, many new images of larval host plants:

http://www.ifoundbutterflies.org/LHP/

-- Krushnamegh Kunte

ButterflyIndia project on iNaturalist crosses 1000 mark

iNaturalist is a specialized biodiversity portal. Some people call it Faacebook for Biodiversity lovers. The portal lets us post records in the form of photos, other members can help us identify them and the data is made available to wider audience through portals like Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and Encyclopedia of Life (EOL). 

We have been posting records of butterflies on the ButterflyIndia project on iNaturalist for some time and now we have reached a significant mark. We now have 1000 records covering more than 250 taxa. We are in a process of making all the records Research Grade meaning verified by at least one other member than the one who has posted it. These records complete with what, when, where and by whom. So these records can be quickly mapped or analysed in different ways. The opportunities are unlimited.

Map showing locations of first 1000 records on ButterflyIndia project

These kind of projects help us build data on larger scale and help us understand our biodiversity better. Since the data is made available on several international portals, in some sense our records become immortal and would be preserved for a very long time. 

Now we need help. You can help us in following ways:

• By posting more records for different species and different regions. You can see in the map where we have data and where are the gaps.
• Requesting and helping more members to convert their photographs into re-usable records to help research and conservation
• Helping confirm identifications to get more records to research grade. We need lot of help here, we have many records yet to be confirmed.
• By simply encouraging members who are posting records by comments on the records

Starting the contributions is very simple, login into iNaturalist website using any id like Google, Facebook, Yahoo etc. and get going. So now start digging in your photo archive and start posting records, help identify and confirm identifications for others.  

We seek your feedback on this project. We would like to hear form you about:

1. How can we attract more contributions on such portals?
2. How can we address the need for identification confirmations?
3. Do you find such activities useful at all?
4. What long term contributions you see these portals making?

Here are some more examples of quick analysis and visualizations of this data we did in under half an hour.

Each dot represents a day and each year is represented in concentric circles. Blue color represents less records on the day and red represents more.

Families represented in our data. Larger the box, more records we have.

Each line represents a calender day of year and length represents number of records on that day.  

 Same as above aggregated monthly

  Same as above aggregated weekly

Each square represents approximately one degree by one degree area (~110x110km) and color represents number of records form that region.

Data extraction using package rinat and visualizations created using package bdvis in R. More examples and sample code can be found at http://vijaybarve.wordpress.com/tag/r/

• Barve, V., & Hart, E. (2014). rinat: Access iNaturalist data through APIs. R package. Retrieved from http://cran.r-project.org/package=rinat
• Barve, V. (2014). bdvis: Biodiversity Data Visualizations. Retrieved from https://github.com/vijaybarve/bdvis

India could soon help bring back an extinct, spectacular species of lions

LONDON: India could soon help bring back an extinct lion species. DNA tests by an international team of scientists has confirmed the lions in India have close genetic links with the now extinct Barbary lions.

This means that "reseeding" Indian lions could bring back the extinct species and reintroduce lions into North Africa.

Barbary lions of North Africa extending from Egypt to Morocco were also called the Atlas lions and had the most spectacular physical features of all lion species. (Getty Images photo)

Less than 400 Asiatic lions survive at present on the Kathiawar Peninsula of India and the species is listed as endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

Barbary lions of North Africa — including mountainous regions — extending from Egypt to Morocco were also called the Atlas lions and had the most spectacular physical features of all lion species. The lion's extensive mane made it look majestic. It was a lot larger with differently-coloured eyes to other lions.

Dr Ross Barnett of Copenhagen University, who had started the research during his days at Durham University in UK, sequenced the DNA from the skulls of two Barbary lions once held in Britain's Tower of London. It has helped reveal the origin of modern lions.

The skulls of these lions dated as living in the 14th and 15th centuries were discovered preserved in the Tower of London's moat.

Dr Barnett said he was surprised by the incredibly close relationship between the extinct Barbary lion from North Africa and the Asian lion from India. This he says could now get conservationists start talking about resurrecting the subspecies and reintroducing lions into North Africa"

Despite the large geographical distances between them, the Indian lions seem to be closely related to Iranian lions and the Barbary lions of North Africa.

The study says: "In the tiger, another charismatic felid species, studies of ancient mitochondrial DNA have suggested a close relationship between the extinct central Asian Caspian tiger and the extant Amur tiger. This has allowed conservationists to discuss the translocation of Amur tiger stock to occupy the former range of the Caspian tiger with support from the World Tiger Summit. Similarly, if no examples of purebred Barbary lions can be found within the zoo population, there might be scope for restoration of the North African lion population using the closely related Indian lion."

A genetic analysis of living lions and museum specimens confirms modern lions' most recent common ancestor lived around 124,000 years ago.

Dr Barnett said, "Understanding the demographic history of a population is critical to conservation. This is particularly true for the lion which as a consequence of millennia of human persecution, has large gaps in its natural distribution and several recently extinct populations. We sequenced mitochondrial DNA from museum-preserved individuals including the extinct Barbary lion and Iranian lion as well as lions from West and Central Africa. We have identified deep, well-supported splits within the mitochondrial phylogeny of African lions."

The lion had one of the largest geographical distributions of any terrestrial mammal during the Late Pleistocene, ranging from southern Africa through northern Eurasia to Central America. Widespread hunting and anthropogenic changes to lion habitat are continuing to reduce lion populations across their entire range.

The research says: "From the DNA analysis, we identified four new mitochondrial haplotypes: one from North Africa, one from a suspected Barbary lion present in medieval London, one from Iran, and one from Senegal. Four of the six Barbary lions exhibited sequence identical to that of the extant Indian lion."

"International bodies currently recognize only two lion conservation units: African and Asian lions. The data clearly show that Asian lions are nested within the diversity present in Central, West and North Africa. Of particular concern are the central African and western African populations, which may be close to extinction, with estimates of 800 lions in West Africa and 900 lions in Central Africa. The close phylogenetic relationships among Barbary, Iranian, and Indian lion populations are noteworthy given their considerable geographical separation. The restoration of the extinct North African Barbary lion has attracted the attention of conservationists both inside and outside North Africa," it added.

Original News

National Moth Week 2014, July 19-27

National Moth Week 2014, July 19-27,
Invites Citizen Scientists Around the World to Celebrate Moths

The third annual National Moth Week, July 19-27, a global event, will celebrate the beauty, life cycles, and habitats of moths, encouraging “moth-ers” of all ages and abilities to learn about, observe, and document moths in their backyards, parks, and neighborhoods.

National Moth Week (NMW) shines a much-needed spotlight on moths and their ecological importance as well as their incredible biodiversity. This nine-day global event encourages children and adults to become “citizen scientists” and contribute photos and data to online databases. Last year, more than 400 events were held in all 50 states and 41 countries.

Why study moths?

• Moths are among the most diverse and successful organisms on earth.
• Scientists estimate there are 150,000 to more than 500,000 moth species. 
• Their colors and patterns are either dazzling or so cryptic that they define camouflage. Shapes and sizes span the gamut from as small as a pinhead to as large as an adult’s hand. 
• ost moths are nocturnal, and need to be sought at night to be seen – others fly like butterflies during the day. 
• Finding moths can be as simple as leaving a porch light on and checking it after dark. Serious moth aficionados use special lights and baits to attract them.

A moth-ing event could involve turning on a porch light at night and watching what happens, or going outside in daylight to find caterpillars and diurnal moths. Participants can use ordinary light bulbs, UV lights, or mercury vapor lights to draw moths, or brush sweet moth bait on tree barks for a bigger response.

Through partnerships with major online biological data depositories such as BAMONA, Project Noah, Encyclopedia of Life, Discover Life, and iNaturalist, National Moth Week encourages participants to record moth distribution and to provide information on other aspects of their life cycles and habitats.

Last year, moth-watching and educational events were held throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, South, Central, and North America. Events included “moth nights,” museum exhibitions, a “moth ball,” educational programs at parks and camps, urban mothing parties, and tours of the insect collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

IndianMoths is partnering this year too in this international citizen science initiative. To participate in the event visit Locations page to go to event locations in India. Find a public event near you or volunteer to organize a public or private event.

Please post your records on India Biodiversity Portal or iNaturalist project to get identification help from members.

If you have any questions about the event feel free to contact me at vijay at diversityindia.org

Evil hackers are eyeing the endangered animals

Hackers are selling the location of animals monitored by GPS for hunters, who profit from the sale of animals on the black market

Bengal Tiger: species was attacked by hackers in India last year

São Paulo - Endangered animals monitored by collars with GPS are becoming the target of cyber attacks. Hackers are selling the location of animals for hunters who profit from the illegal animal trade market.

An action of the type was registered on July 24 last year in Panna, bengal tiger reserve located in India. At the time, hackers attempted to gain access to the location of one of the tigers - provided by email only three researchers. However, the attack was unsuccessful, reports the website of the magazine Popular Science .

According to data from the Global Fund for Wildlife, a Bengal tiger gets to be sold for $ 50,000 in the pet trade, which sum would move next year to $ 10 billion market, after the recent push enabled for online sales.

Monitored worth much 

Among other problems, the monitoring of endangered animals by GPS implies heavy investment in electronic devices. Currently, implement technology that indicates the exact position of an animal does not leave for less than $ 5,000.

The high cost of operation makes researchers choose to monitor only the most endangered species - that, in general, reached this condition to be more valuable in the poaching market.
So, know where an animal of this kind can be worth a lot of money - which encourages further attacks from hackers.

Among the solutions to the problem pointed out by experts, are investing in a tracking system with enhanced security (as is already happening in Namibia) or even by reserves surveillance drones - that should be implemented soon in Kenya.

Until then, endangered wildlife will continue targeted by hackers and hunters.

Original Portuguese  Source
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नाशिकमध्ये आजपासून अनोखा पक्षी महोत्सव

१५ व १६ फेब्रुवारी या कालावधीत होणाऱ्या महोत्सवात गंगापूर धरणाच्या पाणलोट क्षेत्रात पक्षी निरीक्षणाचा कार्यक्रम

मोठय़ा संख्येने स्थलांतरीत पक्ष्यांचे आगमन होणारे तामीळनाडूतील पॉईंट कॅलिमर, कर्नाटकातील रंगनथिट्टू पक्षी उभयारण्य, भारतातील अतिशय दुर्मिळ होत चाललेला माळठोक पक्षी, नाशिक शहर परिसरात तसेच गुजरातमधील कच्छच्या रणातील स्थलांतरीत पक्षी.. अशा वेगवेगळ्या विषयांवर माहितीपटाद्वारे प्रकाशझोत टाकणारा अनोखा 'बर्ड फेस्ट' अर्थात पक्षी महोत्सव नाशिकमध्ये रंगणार आहे. १५ व १६ फेब्रुवारी या कालावधीत होणाऱ्या महोत्सवात गंगापूर धरणाच्या पाणलोट क्षेत्रात पक्षी निरीक्षणाचा कार्यक्रमही होणार आहे.

पक्षी निरीक्षणाचा छंद अधिकाधिक नागरिकांपर्यंत पोहोचविण्याच्या उद्देशाने शहरात प्रथमच आयोजित पक्षी महोत्सव पक्षीप्रेमींसाठी पर्वणी ठरणार आहे. गंगापूर रस्त्यावरील कुसुमाग्रज स्मारक येथे होणाऱ्या या दोन दिवसीय महोत्सवात आंतरराष्ट्रीय माहितीपट दिग्दर्शक बेदी बंधू, शेकर दत्तात्री, असीमा नरेन, विलास काणे यांनी तयार केलेल्या पक्ष्यांवर आधारीत माहितीपट सादर केले जाणार आहेत. नेचर वॉक चॅरिटेबल ट्रस्ट, महाराष्ट्र राज्य पर्यटन विकास महामंडळ व नाशिक वन विभाग यांच्यातर्फे या महोत्सवाचे आयोजन करण्यात आले आहे. उत्तरेकडून श्रीलंकेकडे स्थलांतरीत होणाऱ्या पक्ष्यांचा तामीळनाडू येथील पॉइंट कॅलिमर हा जणू थांबा आहे. दरवर्षी या ठिकाणी मोठय़ा संख्येने परदेशी पक्षी येतात. या पक्ष्यांवर प्रकाश टाकणारा माहितीपट 'पॉइंट कॅलिमर' सादर होईल. रुंद्रांश माथूर या तेरा वर्षीय मुलाने बनविलेला 'माझ्या खिडकीतून दिसणारे पक्षी' यावर आधारीत पुरस्कार मिळविणारा माहितीपट पाहण्याची संधी महोत्सवात मिळणार आहे. नाशिक जिल्ह्यातील नांदूरमध्यमेश्वर व गंगापूर धरणाच्या पाणलोट क्षेत्रात दरवर्षी मोठय़ा संख्येने परदेशी पक्षी येत असतात. त्यावर डॉ. श्रीश क्षीरसागर हे 'स्लाईड शो'द्वारे प्रकाशझोत टाकणार आहेत. गुजरातमधील कच्छचे रण हा काही महिने वाळवंटी असणारा प्रदेश. तथापि, या क्षेत्रात मोठय़ा संख्येने पक्षी येतात. नाशिक व गुजरातमध्ये येणारे स्थलांतरीत पक्षी या विषयावर तज्ज्ञांची व्याख्यानेही होतील. महोत्सवाचा समारोप उत्तर-पूर्व भागात होणाऱ्या पक्षी व प्राण्यांची शिकार या विषयावरील पांडा पुरस्कारप्राप्त 'द वाईल्ड मीट ट्रायल' या रिटा बॅनर्जी दिग्दर्शीत माहितीपटाने होईल. रविवारी गंगापूर धरणाच्या पाणलोट क्षेत्रात सकाळी साडे सहा ते आठ या कालावधीत पक्षी निरीक्षणाचा कार्यक्रम होईल.