Biodiversity Meet, Nagaland 2018

Butterflies & moths, birds, odonates, spiders, amphibians & reptiles, cicadas and more…

Sukhai, Ghukhuyi & Kivikhu, Zunheboto District, Nagaland

Dates: 9th May to 16th May 2018

Costs: Rs.16,500/- per person (for Indian citizens), ex Dimapur, including food, stay vehicle hire on all days on first come, first served basis by transferring 50% of the contributory amount to the
bank account below:

Bank details:

Send your contributory amount to
Account name: TITLI
Bank name: State Bank of India
Address: Jakhan, Dehradun
Current account number: 31058150506
IFSC code: SBIN0006155

And email your deposit details to sanjay.sondhi1@gmail.com

Maximum capacity: 16 people

About the biodiversity meet

This Biodiversity Meet is being organised to learn and document the biodiversity of Sukhai, Ghukhuyi and Kivikhu villages in Zunheboto District, Nagaland. Pia Sethi and her team from the The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI) has been working in this landscape for the last three years. As an outcome of their efforts, the three villages above have voluntarily formed Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) in order to protect their forests and associated biodiversity. Since the beginning of 2017, Titli Trust has been supporting TERI to assess the area’s biodiversity, as well as to evaluate the opportunity to initiate nature-linked tourism as an incentive to conserve. More than 200 species of birds, 120 species of butterflies, 200 species of moths have already been documents with many endemics. At this point in time, there is no tourism infrastructure in this area, and the Biodiversity Meet participants will be staying in homes of villagers.

Meet organisers

The meeting is being organised on a voluntary basis by TERI, Titli Trust, DiversityIndia, NatureMates and Indian Foundation for Butterflies. All proceeds from the meet will go to the local communities.

Inclusions:

• Boarding at Sukhai, Ghukhuyi and Kivikhu villages.
• 3 meals per day (breakfast, lunch & dinner). Non vegetarian meals are included.
• Vehicle hire for the duration of the meet (4 people to a vehicle).
• Arranging for ILP’s.
• Local guides.

Exclusions:

• Personal expenses such as tips, phone bills, bottled water & bottled beverages.
• Rail and/or airfare to and from Dimapur.
• Insurance and medical claims.
• Lunch on the last day.

Participants need to arrive at Dimapur airport on 9th May 2018 by 1230 hrs.
Participants will be dropped off at Dimapur airport on 16th May 2018 by 1100 hrs.

Accommodation:

Village homes at Sukhai, Ghukhuyi and Kivikhu on a shared basis.

Visit day-to-day schedule:

• 9th May 2018: Departure from Dimapur airport at 1300 hrs. 10 our drive to Sukhai.
• 10, 11th May 2018: Sukhai village & surrounds. 11th May travel to Ghukhuyi (5 km, 20 minutes).
• 12th, 13th May 2018: Ghukhuyi & surrounds. 13th May travel to Kivikhu (25 km, 1.5 hours)
• 14, 15th May 2018: Kivikhu & surrounds. 15th May late afternoon travel to Wokha/Kohima.
• 16th May 2018: travel to Dimapur

Schedule of activities (based on participants):

• Brief about the area; interaction with the Sema tribe and their conservation plans.
• Trails for butterfly, bird and other faunal group daily.
• Moth/insect screens every night.
• “Herp” walks at night.
• Identification sessions for various species’ groups in the evening.
• Upload of information on various NCBS/IFB websites.

Contacts for this Biodiversity meet:

• Sanjay Sondhi, Titli Trust, sanjay.sondhi1@gmail.com, +91 9412052189
• Pia Sethi, TERI, pias@teri.res.in, +91 9811222321
• Vijay Barve, DiversityIndia, vijay.barve@gmail.com, +91 9845724832  (What'sApp and Telegram)
• Krushnamegh Kunte, IFoundButterflies, krushnamegh@ifoundbutterflies.org

DragonflyIndia is 12 years

Dear Odonutters and Naturalists,

I am so happy to wish DragonflyIndia a very happy birthday. DragonflyIndia enters teens now.

It was in 2005 during ButterflyIndia meet at Aralam, David Raju, Kiran C G, Subbu and me discussed the idea of bringing Odonata enthusiasts and researchers of Indian Subcontinent together on a virtual platform YahooGroups. It has been growing by leaps and bounds after that.

We have presence on most of the social media platforms that people use to talk about Biodiversity. We are in process of developing a comprehensive resource Odonata of India,  a very vibrant facebook group, some serious data curation efforts on India Biodiversity Portal and iNaturalist and to top it all our Meets. 

To keep up with updates we have DiversityIndia updates page and twitter @dragonflyindia and #dragonflyIndia

Of course this would not have been possible without enthusiasm and support of the the members, group admins and coordinators of the meets.

Now that we are entering teens, it is time to get more serious and systematic in our contributions, and also have more fun together. Any ideas for activities that our group should take up, please share here in comments.

Happy Birthday DragonflyIndia once again.

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.

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

Butterflies on your mind?

By Sunita Raghu

Published: 15th September 2013 12:00 AM

Last Updated: 13th September 2013 11:11 AM

Vijay Barve (Photo: Vinod Kumar T)

It was love at first sight. Vijay Barve remembers all too well, the first time he saw the pupa of a common crow butterfly. It was like a shiny gold pendant, glimmering on an oleander plant, he recalls. Before this, he had witnessed a butterfly lay eggs. And that was, probably, the moment that would direct the course of his life. The boy who had begun to observe the lifecycles of butterflies soon joined the ranks of bonafide butterfly lovers and made it his life’s mission to spread awareness about the ubiquitous, brightly winged insect.

It is hardly surprising that Vijay grew up to be a butterfly expert. Childhood comprised of weekend bird watching trips with parents who were avid nature lovers. Raised to admire and observe the natural world, Vijay’s nature education was quite thorough.

A master’s degree in computer science from Pune University, followed by a stint with a scientific and research organization FRLHT (Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Tradition), further cemented his closeness to nature. At FRLHT, Vijay was involved in the distribution mapping of medicinal plants. And with plants came butterflies as a particular butterfly makes its home only on a certain plant to lay eggs. Broadening his scope of interest, Vijay did a course in entomology from the Bombay Natural History Society, of which he is a life-long member.

In 2001, Vijay started the Butterfly India Yahoo group. This e-initiative gave a platform to butterfly lovers (it has 1,500 members at present) across the country to share pictures and information.

“We may have butterfly experts like Isaac Kehimkar, Krushnamegh Kunte, Peter Smetacek and many others in India, but it’s Vijay who brought us together,” says Kolkata-based butterfly specialist, Arjan Basu Roy. “If butterfly watching/photography has become a popular form of nature study in India, significant credit goes to him.” Vijay also launched DiversityIndia Yahoo group that focuses on small invertebrates.

Besides this, Vijay has also created and has been managing cyber communities of naturalists interested in different biodiversity such as SpiderIndia, DragonflyIndia, IndianMoths, AmphibianIndia, ReptileIndia, InsectIndia, InvertebrateIndia, WildflowerIndia, GernCareerIndia and GreenLifestyleIndia.

Things thus chugged along in the virtual world, until Vijay and his friends came up with the idea of butterfly meets. “It was sometime in 2004 when we had the first butterfly meet, one in Kerala at the Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary and another in Mumbai,” says Vijay. “Meets such as these fulfill a useful purpose—of bringing like-minded people together to do some fieldwork which led to sharing and learning techniques of identification, photography,” he explains. 

A job shift saw Vijay making his way to the University of Kansas, USA, where again he was able to coalesce his interest in biodiversity with his work. One experiment that he fondly remembers is the radio tagging of laboratory-raised monarch butterflies, a pioneering effort for sure. The monarch butterfly undertakes a spectacular migration, traversing thousands of kilometres from Canada to Mexico. “With our refined tracking system, we were able to track them for 10 miles,” he says.

Butterfly conservation, says Vijay, is essential. “The butterfly is an indicator species, it is sensitive to the environment. Greater numbers of butterflies in a region signify that the ecology is in good shape,” says Vijay, who lists the Blue Mormon butterfly as his favourite.

Vijay feels the best way to create interest in butterfly conservation is through the media and by constructing butterfly parks.

Original Post

Rare dragonfly spotted at Thenmala

The rare lesser blue wing dragonfly sighted at the Thenmala Butterfly Safari Park in Kollam district. 

 

The lesser blue wing dragonfly (Rhyothemis triangular) considered a rare dragonfly in South India has been spotted and photographed at the Thenmala Butterfly Safari Park in Kollam district. 

This feast for the eyes sighting was made on January 14 by the butterfly and bird enthusiasts, C. Sushanth and M.S. Akhil during the monthly butterfly and dragonfly monitoring exercise. 

The slow-flying lesser blue wing is a medium-sized elusive dragonfly with metallic blue markings on the base of its wings. Ponds and marshes are the favourite spots of these dragonflies since they love perching near water bodies. This could be because it breeds in marshes and similar habitats. 

But in the southern part of the country they are rarely sighted. The previous recorded sighting of this dragonfly was some last year by wildlife photographer and dragonfly enthusiast T. Dragon fly close to a wetland in Vithura of Thiruvananthapuram district. 

Mr. Sushanth said that one of the fascinating aspects of the lesser blue wing is that it can float in the air for long periods without flapping the wings. Both Sushanth and Akhil recorded sighting rare dragonflies and damselflies within and around the Thenmala butterfly park. 

Full Story

 

My Fathers Garden

I came across this really neat short file my Mirko Faienza called "My Fathers Garder". Thanks to Rahul Natu for sharing it.

It is a really short file of less than seven minutes, detecting a day in a small backyard garden. It has captures several insects and spiders. This I feel is an excellent example of how urban biodiversity can be preserved in such small gardens and how interesting it could be to spend some time watching it. I am sure you will enjoy it. Do leave your comments if you like it.

[For better viewing experience, enjoy it full screen]

My Father's Garden from Mirko Faienza on Vimeo.

Dragonflies face uncertain future

Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

The Malaysian dragonfly Pseudagrion microcephalum. (K. Wilson)

At least one in ten species of dragonfly and damselfly are threatened with extinction, according to the first world survey of their numbers.

The figure may be an underestimate as so little is known about many species.

However, the news is not all bad. The survey published in Biological Conservation is the first to assess the vulnerability of any insect group on a global scale.

And it suggests the extinction risk faced by insects has been exaggerated.

PROPORTION OF THREATENED SPECIES 31% of amphibians 20% of mammals 12% of birds 10% of dragonflies and damselflies

Viola Clausnitzer led an international team of conservation scientists from Germany, Australia, Japan, Russia and the UK among others. They reviewed the status of a random sample of 1500 of the 5680 dragonflies and damselflies known to science.

The team assessed the population and distribution of each species according to the Red List criteria set down by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

They found that more than half of the species should be categorised as Least Concern, which means they likely remain widespread globally, or are not threatened even if they live in a restricted range.

But one in 10 species is threatened, meaning it is categorised as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.

The Pemba Featherleg (Platycnemis pembipes) a fragile damselfly first discovered in 2001. The species inhabits a single stream in Tanzania and is listed as Critically Endangered. (V. Clausnitzer)

"It's fair to say that is an underestimate," says Clausnitzer, as too little data exists to accurately assess the status of 35 per cent of the species.

Dragonflies and damselflies, which belong to the insect order known as the Odonata, are susceptible because the larvae of each species live in water. So pollution and changes to habitat, such as forest degradation, which affect water courses can have an impact.

Indeed, because of their sensitivity to water and habitat quality, dragonflies are frequently used to assess environmental health. With their striking colours and behaviour they can be used as indicator species. "If they disappear you've got something wrong with your habitat," says Clausnitzer.

Those species most at risk tend to live in south east Asia and Australia.

In south east Asia, a large number of species are endemic to islands such as the Philippines or within Indonesia, and cannot escape detrimental impacts on their habitat.

ALREADY EXTINCT Two species of Odonata are known to have gone extinct Both lived on islands Sympetrum dilatatum once lived on Saint Helena Megalagrion jugorum once lived on Maui in the Hawaiian islands

In Australia, climate change is having an especially strong impact on freshwater systems.

The survey is the first to assess the global health of any order of insects. Compared to vertebrates, the dragonflies and damselflies are not doing badly.

"Amphibians are more threatened than dragonflies in general," says Clausnitzer. Amphibians are being particularly afflicted by the deadly chytrid fungus. "Another difference is that adult dragonflies are more mobile. If one site is destroyed they still have the chance to fly to another site, which frogs don't have."

They also seem less to be less threatened than the mammals, but at a similar level of risk as birds.

"We were a bit surprised that the dragonflies are not that bad off," says Clausnitzer.

"There is a big discussion going on about invertebrates and extinction rates in insects, and this discussion is not based on any real figures. It is all estimations," she adds.

Only males of Klugi's Threadtail (Protoneura klugi) were known from two locations in Amazonian Peru. The species is listed as Data deficient. (R. W. Garrison)

In general, conservationists have feared that a much higher proportion of insect species face extinction.

However, Clausnitzer cautions that much more research needs to be done to be sure, and different groups of insects might face very different challenges.

For instance, while the reliance of dragonflies and damselflies on water makes them susceptible, says Clausnitzer "dragonflies are the strongest fliers in the insect kingdom. So you might get a very different picture if you take less capable fliers."

Story

Longest insect migration revealed

Matt Walker Editor, Earth News

Globe skimmers rest up

Every year, millions of dragonflies fly thousands of kilometres across the sea from southern India to Africa.

So says a biologist in the Maldives, who claims to have discovered the longest migration of any insect.

If confirmed, the mass exodus would be the first known insect migration across open ocean water.

It would also dwarf the famous trip taken each year by Monarch butterflies, which fly just half the distance across the Americas.

Biologist Charles Anderson has published details of the mass migration in the Journal of Tropical Ecology.

Each year, millions of dragonflies arrive on the Maldive Islands, an event which is well known to people living there.

"But no-one I have spoken to knew where they came from," says Anderson, an independent biologist who usually works with organisations such as the Maldivian Marine Research Centre to survey marine life around the islands.

This just illustrates how little we still know about the natural world Biologist Charles Anderson

Their appearance is especially peculiar because the 1200 islands that make up the Maldives lie 500 to 1000km from the mainland of southern India, and all are coral cays with almost no surface freshwater, which dragonflies need to complete their lifecycle.

Anderson noticed the dragonflies after he first arrived in the Maldives in 1983. He started keeping detailed records each year from 1996 and now collates data collected by local observers at other localities in the Maldives, in India and on vessels at sea.

When Anderson compared these observations with those made of dragonflies appearing in southern India, he found a clear progression of arrival dates from north to south, with dragonflies arriving first in southern India, then in the Republic of Maldives' capital Male, and then on more southern atolls.

Each year, dragonflies first appear in Male between 4 and 23 October, with a mean arrival date of 21 October. Dragonfly numbers peak in November and December, before the insects then disappear once more. The insects arrive in waves, with each staying for no more than a few days.

Over 98% of the dragonflies recorded on the islands are Globe skimmers (Pantala flavescens), but Pale-spotted emperors (Anax guttatus), Vagrant emperors (A. ephippiger), Twisters (Tholymis tillarga) and Blue perchers (Diplacodes trivialis) also appear in some numbers.

The dragonflies then reappear between April and June.

Longest journey

The dragonflies are clearly migrating from India across the open sea to the Maldives, says Anderson.

"That by itself is fairly amazing, as it involves a journey of 600 to 800km across the ocean," he says.

Quite how they do it was a bit of a mystery, as in October at least they appear to be flying against the prevailing winds.

However, in October, and continuing into November and December, a weather system called the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone moves southwards over the Maldives.

Ahead of the ITCZ the wind blows towards India, but above and behind it the winds blow from India. So it seems that the dragonflies are able to reach Maldives by flying on these winds at altitude above 1000m.

HARDCORE FLYING Globe skimmers are renowned for their ability to fly long-distances They can fly up to 6300m high, the highest of any dragonfly species With a tailwind of 10m per second, a dragonfly could cross from India to Male in 24 hours Maldivians consider the dragonflies' arrival to be a harbinger of the north-east monsoon

But that is not the end of the animals' epic adventure.

"As there is no freshwater in Maldives for dragonflies, what are they doing here?" asks Anderson.

"I have also deduced that they are flying all the way across the western Indian Ocean to East Africa."

Anderson has gathered a wealth of circumstantial evidence to back his claim.

Large numbers of dragonflies also start appearing in the northern Seychelles, some 2700km from India, in November, and then in Aldabra in the Seychelles, 3800km from India, in December.

That matches the slow southerly movement of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone weather system, behind which winds blow steadily from India to East Africa.

It is also known that Globe skimmers appear in large numbers through eastern and southern Africa.

In Uganda, they appear twice each year in March or April and again in September, while further south in Tanzania and Mozambique they appear in December and January.

Record breakers

That strongly suggest that the dragonflies take advantage of the moving weather systems and monsoon rains to complete an epic migration from southern India to east and southern Africa, and then likely back again, a round trip of 14,000 to 18,000km.

"The species involved breeds in temporary rainwater pools. So it is following the rains, taking sequential advantage of the monsoon rains of India, the short rains of East Africa, the summer rains of southern Africa, the long rains of East Africa, and then back to India for the next monsoon," says Anderson.

"It may seem remarkable that such a massive migration has gone unnoticed until now. But this just illustrates how little we still know about the natural world."

The monarch butterfly is often cited as having the longest migration of any insect, covering around 7000km in an annual round trip from Mexico to southern Canada.

On average, it takes four generations of butterflies to complete the journey.

Anderson believes that the dragonflies survive the ocean flights by gliding on the winds, feeding on other small insects.

They too, take four generations to make the full round trip each year.

He says the migratory paths of a number of insect-eating bird species, including cuckoos, nightjars, falcons and bee-eaters, follow that of the dragonfly migration, from southern India to their wintering grounds in Africa. That suggests the birds feed on the dragonflies as they travel.

"They [fly] at the same time and altitudes as the dragonflies. And what has not been realised before is that all are medium-sized birds that eat insects, insects the size of dragonflies," he says.

Extraordinary ability

"There are earlier records of swarms of Globe skimmers flying out to sea, and at sea," Anderson continues.

"But it was always assumed that those dragonflies were doomed. Which says rather more about our earth-bound lack of imagination than it does about the globe skimmers' extraordinary flying abilities."

Story