SpiderIndia Meet 2017/2018

Update : 2017-10-31
[Information on this page might change frequently over next few weeks]

We are in early stages of finalizing a SpiderIndia meet for this year end. Registration details would be available soon.

As per the voting, we have decided on Option A


Option A Gibbon WLS 
3 days 2 night (22,23,24 Dec.) 
INR 5100.00 Covering all food stay and Travel (to and fro from Guwahati to Mariani) Local convenience, t.shirt, forest entry fees, Guide fees. The stay will be inside the forest, in Forest IB of Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary. Very basic multiple share accommodation. (Boys and Girls separate). 
It will be a DiversityIndia initiative SpiderIndia 
Event Local organizer WE Foundation India 


Later in 2018 we would be planning a meet here.
Option B Patandevi (ex Jalgaon MH) 
3 days 2 night (5-6-7 Jan 2018) 
INR 5500.00 Covering all food stay and Travel (to and fro from Jalgao) Local convenience, t.shirt, forest entry fees, Guide fees. The stay will be Basic multiple share accomodation. (Boys and Girls separate). 
It will be a DiversityIndia initiative SpiderIndia 
Event Local organiser Vanyajeev Sanrakshan Sanstha 

We are voting on Facebook currently for deciding on the venue.[Voting closed]

Rare spider spotted in a remote hospital in Assam through activities of a School Nature Club

An article was published recently in the Biodiversity Data Journal entitled, “Report of Platythomisus octomaculatus (C. L. Koch, 1845) and Platythomisus sudeepi Biswas, 1977 from India (Araneae, Thomisidae)”. The first species, P. octomaculatus, is being recorded after 120 years of its last report and its distribution has been extended to Assam in India from its previously known distributions in Java and Sumatra. The article was published by Ms. Swara Yadav, a zoologist from Satara, Maharashtra and Dr. Vijay Anand Ismavel, the Medical Superintendent of the Makunda Christian Leprosy & General Hospital (www.makunda.in) in the Karimganj District of Assam. Mr. Vinayak Patil from the College of Forestry in Dapoli, Maharashtra had also found another species in the same genus, P. sudeepi, and this observation is also discussed and reported in the same paper.

The Assam observation was possible through the activities of the “Makunda Nature Club”. Dr. Vijay Anand Ismavel had been working in the Makunda hospital (a mission hospital situated in a remote part of Assam, bordering Mizoram and Tripura) since 1993. He started photographing and documenting biodiversity in and around the campus in 2009 (shortly after suffering a heart attack). Over the next 7 years, he documented over 5300 observations (of nearly 2000 different species) – all of them uploaded to iNaturalist with over 10,000 supporting photographs - http://www.inaturalist.org/people/8853. Most of them are also posted to the different iNaturalist groups of DiversityIndia.

 In 2015, Dr. Vijay Anand founded the “Makunda Nature Club” – this is formed with some staff members (postgraduate teachers in Botany, Zoology and Biotechnology of the Makunda Christian Higher Secondary School -  a school run by the Hospital Society with over 900 children studying upto Class XII in Arts/Science) and about 30 student members. A seminar on Forest Conservation was the first activity – tree-planting and a talk by Padma Shri Jadav Payeng, the “Forest Man of India”. The club then organized a biodiversity documentation workshop conducted by Mr. Rohit George from Indian BiodiversityPortal (IBP) at Makunda and following this a “Makunda Nature Club” group was also formed on IBP to enable members to upload photos from their cellphones directly using the IBP App. Mr. Siddharth Kulkarni, an arachnologist from Pune who is also the Country Coordinator for India on the World Spider Catalog (he is presently pursuing his Ph.D in Arachnology at the George Washington University in the USA) then conducted a workshop on “Basic Arachnology” for the Club members. A few months later, Mr. Siddharth Kulkarni and Ms. Swara Yadav were  invited to Makunda to spend time with the Club members in doing a survey of spider biodiversity in the 350 acre campus of the hospital. Members learnt about spider families, habits and how to identify different species. The hospital purchased a stereo-microscope for the Club so that identification of spiders could be done in the school science laboratory. It was during this survey, that two specimens of Platythomisus octomaculatus were found (one by Antina Pasyad, a student from Class 8 of the school and the other by Rejoice Gassah, who has joined the hospital as a full-time staff of the Club – he was a student of Makunda’s School and is now pursuing his BA – both of them belong to the Jaintia tribe and their families live in jungle villages close to the hospital). One of the spiders had an egg-sac – members observed spider-lings emerge and grow over several days till they dispersed. Further scientific work on confirmation of the identification was done by Ms. Swara Yadav and Mr. Siddharth Kulkarni leading to the publication.

The Makunda Nature Club is probably the only (or one of the few) nature clubs in schools in India that inform and engage student members in actual professional scientific research in surrounding forests.  This creates an awareness of the different life forms that exist, their interdependence with each other and leads children to appreciate their beauty as well as the need to conserve forests and all the species that forests support. It also stimulates the curiosity of children and inculcates an interest to learn more about the species that are observed and adds meaning to the biology subjects that they study in class. A few children, having been exposed to observation and documentation of biodiversity may decide to pursue it as a career.

In 2015, Dr. Vijay Anand and some members of the Club found a male van Hasselt Sunbird (Leptocoma brasiliana) in surrounding forests – this species has now been found in the hospital campus as well. This was the first time this species had been photographed in present-day India and this observation was published in Indian Birds by Dr. Vijay Anand (along with Mr. Praveen Jayadevan, a researcher from Bangalore). We hope that in the years to come, more such discoveries would be made and citizen science initiatives such as the “Makunda Nature Club” would make significant contributions to existing knowledge on biodiversity.

The snake catcher of Digboi - Zoology lecturer masters dangerous yet thrilling skill

RIPUNJOY DAS

Tariang (second from left), flanked by his team members, with a captured snake. Telegraph picture

Dibrugarh, May 20: A lecturer of zoology at Digboi College in Upper Assam’s Tinsukia district is in great demand these days, not for private tuition, but for his mastery over a special yet dangerous skill — catching snakes with his bare hands.

Rajib Rudra Tariang, 37, has become so popular that he has even been invited by the Digboi forest division to train its personnel on the art of catching snakes and then releasing them in the wild.

He had accidentally discovered his skill in 2005, when he came upon some boys trying to kill a snake in Segunbari area in Margherita while he was on his way back from Margherita College, where he used to teach earlier.

“The boys were about to kill the snake when I managed to catch and rescue it. It was a non-poisonous 1.5-feet khukri snake. I immediately emptied my water bottle and put the snake inside it, and brought it to the college lab. Next day, after some study, the snake was released. The incident took place in 2005,” he said.

Tariang, who joined Digboi College in 2008, was a naturalist since his childhood. In his early years, when many boys of his age loved to chase or kill snakes, he found such scenes painful.

Tariang’s area of research is butterfly diversity in and around Jokai reserve forest in Dibrugarh district, which he is carrying out under the guidance of Deepsikha Bora of the department of life science, Dibrugarh University.

“Whenever I go to Jokai for research-related work or to any other forest area, I come across a lot of snakes. These snakes are very important for maintaining the ecological balance of our world. Many people do not realise that most snakes are non-poisonous. We kill them just out of false fear and panic,” the lecturer said.

Tariang, who can now catch any kind of snake and of any length, said it is all about self-confidence, which is the most important criteria for catching and handling snakes. “Apart from my classroom lectures, over the years I have always tried to teach students about snakes and their importance. Many enthusiastic students come forward to learn the trick and it gives me great pleasure to teach them,” he said.

He has also managed to create a small team for himself, which includes Gauri Buragohain, his colleague from the department of English of Digboi College. The team rushes to any nearby locality whenever a snake is spotted there.

“Recently, I got a call from the divisional forest officer of Digboi division, P. Siva Kumar, requesting me to teach him as well as his forest staff the trick to catch snakes. It was a very good experience as the staff learned the trick to handle snakes,” he said.

He, however, still regrets the fact that he had to lose one of his closest aides, Mithun Chakravarty, of Margherita who succumbed to snakebite while attempting to catch a poisonous snake almost a year ago.

“This is why I have said that self-confidence is the main criteria while handling snakes,” he said.

Tariang also advocated that strict measures be initiated against those who illegally captured and killed snakes.

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Pictures: 7 Cat Species Found in 1 Forest—A Record

Leopard Spotted

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

Caught by a camera trap, a leopard prowls under the dense canopy of the Jeypore-Dehing lowland rain forest in the northeast Indian state of Assam (map).

Released in February, the picture was taken during a two-year survey supported by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, the Rufford Small Grants Foundation, and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The research found seven cat species in a 354-square-mile (570-square-kilometer) range—the highest diversity of cat species yet photographed in a single area.

Wildlife biologist Kashmira Kakati had been studying the gibbons of Jeypore-Dehing and became curious about the predator tracks she kept finding on the ground.
"I said, I need to find out what's there," Kakati told National Geographic News. "Nobody had any clue. People who had been in the forest 30 years didn't know."

With 30 digital camera traps, Kakati captured not only the cats but a number of other rare forest animals between 2007 and 2009. "Even I was surprised by the result," she said. (See related pictures of a rare Chinese wildcat snapped by a camera trap.)

(Related: National Geographic's Big Cats Initiative.)

Cloudy Coat

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The camera-trap pictures include this night shot of a rare clouded leopard, so named for the nimbus-like pattern of its coat.

The clouded leopard is listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which means the species faces a high risk of extinction. The cat's population is on the decline, mostly due to loss of habitat from deforestation. (See a picture of rare clouded leopard cubs born at a Virginia zoo.)

In Jeypore-Dehing, the cat is so seldom seen that local villagers don't even have a name for it, Kakati said.

Little Leopard

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

Seen in another Jeypore-Dehing camera-trap picture, the leopard cat is a diminutive and distant relative of the better-known spotted predator from which it takes its name.
The species is commonly recorded across its range in Asia, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Leopard cats are considered to have generally stable populations, except for a few subspecies that are close to extinction.

Golden Moment

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The Jeypore-Dehing rain forest also houses the Asiatic golden cat, which is listed as near threatened—but on the verge of becoming vulnerable—by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

In addition to the seven cat species, Kakati's camera traps recorded 12 other carnivore species in the Jeypore-Dehing range, including a dhole, or Asiatic wild dog; the Malayan sun bear; and several species of the catlike mammal the civet.

Jungle Cat

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The Jeypore-Dehing range is hemmed in by oil, coal, and logging operations that threaten wildlife, Kakati said. Just 69 square miles (111 square kilometers) of the forest, an area known as the Dehing-Patkai Wildlife Sanctuary, is off-limits to development.

In addition, some animals—including the jungle cat pictured above—appear to be migrating to Jeypore-Dehing from adjoining forests to escape severe poaching, Kakati said.

"The range has become a refuge," she said. "Somehow the animals have managed to hold on."

Rear March

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The camera traps recorded about 45 species of mammals—including primates, deer, porcupines, wild pigs, and rodents—that likely serve as prey for the rain forest's carnivores, such as the female tiger pictured above. (Related: "India's Tigers Number Half as Many as Thought.")

Although many cat species are at risk due to poaching for their bones and pelts, people in Jeypore-Dehing don't hunt the cats themselves, Kakati said. But locals do poach the wild deer and pigs, cutting in on carnivores' food sources.

Spotty Protection

Photograph courtesy Kashmira Kakati

The researchers hope the discovery of so many rare cat species in Jeypore-Dehing, including this threatened marbled cat, will encourage the Indian government to protect a wider portion of the Eastern Himalaya region from development and poaching.

"The entire forest here should be protected as a single conservation landscape, free of disturbance and connected by wildlife corridors between the disjunct sections," Ravi Chellam, of the Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program, said in a statement.


—Dan Morrison
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National Geographic Daily News

Rare butterfly sighted after 100 yrs

KOKRAJHAR: Deep within the graveyard of butterflies, there moves a flutter of hope. And the awestruck nature-lover, bewildered at the miraculous triumph, captures a quick moment of the blithe spirits flight for posterity.

Kushal Choudhury, a young lepidopterologist and lecturer at Kokrajhar Science College, has spotted a rare breed of swallowtail butterfly considered extinct at Ultapani Reserve Forest. The jungle, under Haltugaon forest division, is notorious for being the deathbed of hundreds of these winged creatures.

Choudhury, who has been working on a butterfly project since 2002 and is researching on swallowtail butterflies for his PhD since 2008, said, "The Yellow Crested Spangle (Papilio Elephenor Doubleday) was resighted after a long gap of 100 years in Ripu-Chirang Wildlife Sanctuary (RCWS) that extends between 89:554-90:304E and 27:154-26:354N in the Bodoland Territorial Council of western Assam.''

He added, "The sanctuary is a transitional zone between Manas Tiger Reserve in the east and Buxa Tiger Reserve (West Bengal) in the west. It also has strong linkages with Bhutan Biological Conservation Complex as it is located just at the foothills of Phipsu Wildlife Sanctuary and Royal Manas National Park of Bhutan.''

At first, Choudhury believed that it was a mutated spangle butterfly (Papilio protenor) that is similar in size and colour. The yellow markings on the abdomen and the bright yellow head were the most striking and peculiar features of this butterfly. He then circulated the photographs on ButterflyIndia@yahoogroups.com; an e-group for butterfly watchers around the world. It was finally identified and confirmed as the Yellow crested Spangle by Krushnamegh Kunte, post-doctoral research fellow at FAS centre for systems Biology, Harvard University.

"The Yellow Crested Spangle belongs to the Genus Papilio under the family Papilionidae. Papilio elephenor is a highly endangered, federally protected species listed under Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, and is placed under the Endangered (EN A1c, B1 2bc) category of the Red Data list of IUCN (Gupta et al, 2005),'' the lepidopterologist said.

The butterfly is also endemic to the eastern Himalayas and northeastern India. Butterfly exeprts like Bingham (1907), Evans (1932) and Winter-Blyth (1957) have described the presence of this butterfly in Assam and Nagaland and Khasi Hills about 100 years ago, but there has been no recent report of its sightings or documentation till now.

Choudhury has also discovered another butterfly, called Moores cupid (Shijimia moorei Leech, 1889, old name Everes moorei). It is a tiny butterfly and its flight is very fast compared to its size. Choudhury said, "It is also an extremely rare butterfly under the Lycaenidae family. It is mainly found in Japan and southern China. Several decades earlier, its presence was reported from Meghalaya's Khasi hills after which, it was not reported from anywhere else in India. This species is also listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 and categorized as Critically Endangered (CR A1c, B1 2bc) in the IUCN Red Data list''.

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