Save the Pangolins

Pangolins are Mammals of the order Pholidota, and family Manidae which has a single genus, The word Pangolin is derived from Malayan phrase ‘Pen Gulling’ which translates into ‘rolling ball’ or something that rolls up, while the term Pholidota came from a Greek word meaning ‘scaled animals’ the single genus is represented by 8 Species. Pangolins are known as Scaly Ant eaters! They are called “Salak” in Nepali.

Of the 8 Species of Pangolin in the world, 3 species are found in Asia of which two species are found in Nepal. The Chinese Pangolin Manis pentadactyla are distributed from the lower foothills to the middle mountains of Nepal while the Indian Pangolin Manis crassicaudata have been reported from western Terai region of Nepal. The peculiar character of Pangolin is that its skin is covered by large Keratin Scales. It looks like some primitive animal from Jurassic era.

The body looks similar to Pine cone. It is known to curl up into a ball like structure when it feels threatened while the scales act like armor. The Pangolin has an extremely elongated tongue which extend into the abdominal cavity. The largest Pangolins can extend their tongues upto 40 cm. Pangolins do not have teeth and are not able to chew, there’s a specialized glands in the chest of Pangolins which are specialized to produce a sticky ant catching saliva which helps to stick the ants in its long tongue. The diets of Pangolin consist of Ants and Termites. The Pangolins control the Ants and Termites and without them the population Ants could skyrocket. The life span of Pangolins is unknown but they are known to live over 20 years in captivity.

                                                                    Manis pentadactyla (Photo source : www.arkive.org)
                      

Status of Pangolins in Nepal:
The Indian pangolin, thick-tailed pangolin, or scaly anteater (Manis crassicaudata) Near Threatened (IUCN 3.1)
The Chinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) Endangered (IUCN 3.1)

The reason behind the Declining population:
The implication of medical importance of Pangolin is the reason for the declining population as the trade for Pangolin scales grows larger every day. It’s known that Pangolin and Pangolin scales are on high alert in the national and international trade market. They are mostly known to be imported to China, where most people believe that the scales have medicinal values. It is believed that pangolin is very important in healing rheumatic fever, asthma, joint problem etc. It is also believed that the Pangolins Uterus has high traditional value which is associated with avoiding abortion problems. The scales are also made into lockets which are believed to protect the children.

The only way to stop these illegal trade is; to aware the public about the status and importance of the Pangolins and the false assumptions that they are of medicinal uses! Even if there are, the so called healers or medicine makers and Scientist can work together to find the element or the thing whatever it is, the proteins or the chemicals responsible for treatments, if they can find a way to synthesize it that would of great help, but they never think of it like that, it’s just superstition that the pangolin scales are of medicinal uses, well it can’t be true but doesn’t mean we have the rights to over exploit it! The same chemicals, if true, found inside the pangolins can be synthesized outside to treat those diseases. Killing them endlessly is not an option. They are one of the most important animals in the Ecosystem. But in recent years, the trades of Pangolins have subsided. Hope this will continue if future as well and hope that there will come a day when that amazing species will be threat-less in the wild and both humans and Pangolins can live together in peace, which again will be helped by the pangolins, they are helping us control the Ants and the Termites and what are we giving them in return? Death? Is that fair?


P.S. World Pangolin Day is celebrated on the third Saturday in February

#SaveThePangolins Help spread the words!

Field Hike Day 1 : Ghyaampedada

This Saturday took us to right into the mixture of Urban-Suburban-sub rural areas within a few kilometers from the highway. The aim was designed in such a way to explore the Urban Wildlife of that particular area. I was accompanied by two of my friends for the reconnaissance survey. We started out late, well one because I took the wrong bus first and then the bus which roams around the city before exiting on to the outer road that touches that connecting road to Bhaktapur. My friends, both Environmental Science majors joined me on the way. We the got off at Bhaktapur then started walking towards the Suryabinayak Temple. The temple is, may be about a Km away from the main road. The road to Ghyampedada and pilot baba aashram lies on the left side of Suryabinayak temple. For the first few minutes you walk through a completed black pitched road, few minutes into the road and we’re enter a community forest, and slowly the pitched road starts fade, leaving the muddy “Nepali” style of road! The most striking part about that first few minutes was that, it was still slightly urban area, and even with those disturbances I had already seen bunch of different species of Butterflies! I had never heard about that place before, and hearing about the butterflies’ diversity of that place is out of the question. But I was overwhelmed after seeing such a diverse population of butterflies in such a short time span, and they were everywhere, plus the forest seemed so dense and undisturbed! The most common trees were
Dhale Katus : Castanopsis indica- Chestnut
Falat : Quercus glauca – Ring cupped Oak
Musure Katus : Castanopsis tribuloides – Chestnut
Seto Kath : Myrsine capitellata –
 Chilaaune : Schima wallichii

Also lots of Rhodoendron
We walked through the dense forest for about an hour, it would take less if you just walk without looking around the diversity in the forest but we took our time with it, photographing every strange or unknown leaf to trees and mostly butterflies and caterpillar. After walking for an hour we finally reached Pilot baba’s aashram. The aashram sits on top of a peculiar landscape, the aashmram lies in Bhaktapur and a steep slope south to the aashram drops into the southern face into a small valley separated by a river into Lalitpur and Bhaktapur. The slope had considerable number of Aiselu (Rubus sps.). The aashram resides on a very peaceful location with a touch of cold breeze even in the middle of a hot day. The temple premises are well maintained and extremely clean, and the garden is well managed as well with plenty of species of Roses, which I’m really acquainted with or else I’d write down the types or genus of those roses as well. While we were busy trying to take the photographs of the rose garden, the clouds had other plans and all of a sudden they broke into rains and started to pour down on us, draining our hike as well as my survey. We rushed to a small tea house right on the door of the Aashram.

We waited for the rain to end with a cup of black tea. While we were having tea, a foreigner walked into the tea shop all drenched in rain. She asked the shopkeeper for “Dudh Chiya” , again her wish of having a Dudh chiya was drenched by the shopkeeper just like the rain had drenched her, he replied with NO Milk tea! Only Black! She said, it’s fine; I’ll have the black tea. Then shortly we started to have a conversation, she was from Spain and had been to Nepal twice, then the conversation went along, while we were about to leave, I asked her if she was travelling alone, and she was,  so I asked to join us if she wasn’t in a hurry. She wasn’t, she joined us and then we walked towards the Ghyampe Dada, few minutes away from Pilot Baba Aashram. On the way she asked us what we were doing there and I told her that I was there on field visit and I was looking for some Leopards, she didn’t understand it at first, then after I explained to her she said “Ohh Leopaaarrddoooo” in Spainsh accent! She thought I was joking at that time! While having the same conversation we reached Ghyampedada. Ghyaampedada has number of houses and local hotels and as we learned that day that it was famous for local alcoholic products as well as it was a scenic hotspot from where, on a clear day, a wide range of mountains could be seen, but since we were walking in faint rain we didn’t see anything but a blurred out Bhaktapur city below the dark clouds. On the way back we took photos of lots of butterflies, saw one extremely beautiful butterfly, chased it for about 20 minutes but still couldn’t get a shot because the butterfly wouldn’t rest at all! Slowly and gradually we walked down the road and it started to rain again! We only had 1 umbrella and 4 people but we managed somehow, and kept on walking down the road, we did miss out on lots of butterflies because of the rain. But it was extremely fun trying to walk in the muddy slippery roads while it was raining cats and dogs! Finally the rains subsided and we reached the Suryabinayak temple. We had few cup of teas and Waiwai noodles and then had some Sapanish and Japanese lessons! Then as we moved into the urban part of Suryabinayak I had to ask some local few questions regarding my Thesis work, we found a shop where a and elderly man was sitting alone, so we picked that shop and went in to ask him few question. It was as if he was bored to death, he invited use like we were his family member, he was that happy even before I told him why we were there, he asked us to sit down and then I told him what was I looking for, and the pulled out a chair and started talking endlessly. He told me about everything I needed to know regarding the Leopard- Human conflict in that area, as per him, in recent years, there hasn’t been much conflict when it comes to human, because according to him the Leopards come into the urban area to feed on the Dogs! And since, no humans or other cattle’s are harmed there exists no conflict in recent years. That was an interesting insight for my research. He also told me that the Urban wildlife of those areas were, Leopard, the most common one then there were deer (Spotted Deer Axis axis) as per his description, Rabbits, Wild boars, Mongoose etcetera. I did learn about possible habitat and future conflict scenarios from that person, he was extremely helpful. And this is when our Spanish friend believed that we were there for field study and really looking for the Leopaaaardoo! Then we bid him farewell, thanking him for his time and sharing his knowledge. Then as we took a bus, and asked our foreign friend where she’d get off she told us that she had no idea where to get off because she had come to that place last night and had no idea where it was, she knew it was not in Thimi but outside of it, Thankfully she had phone number of that place, so we called them and asked for the location and it was such a location that even my local Bhaktapurian friend had no idea where it was, so we got off with her, asked the locals for the direction and dropped her off at the location. And as it turns out, the place where she was staying was a beautiful garden almost could pass for a Botanical garden with old style Bhaktapurian houses. It’s was an Organic farm plus guest house for peace lovers!

On my personal experience, for a short term hike that place is ideal, with a different cultural blend to natural scenic places to vast diversity of butterflies and birds! Take your time and hike the route!!

Sweats of summer

I'm late every day, even though I wake up at 6 am and start to get ready for the University, I end up being late. And these days with the excruciating heat, the nights feel longer and the summer's buzzing tourists have started to rejoin the blood feast, which again keeps me up till late night and also Twitter is there as well. But then back to the story, I’m always late! Well, all of you know that the traffic system is messed up to its limit, and we all know the scenario of the microbuses. In the morning rush hour, it jam packed, and I’m pretty sure that the  designer or the engineer of Toyota never knew that so many people could fit inside that small space in the microbus, he’d probably be shocked to know that they’d fit 10 people in it! It was fine during the winter, but these days every single one inside the micro bus has a drop of sweat trying to escape the hot surface of their nose and fall on someone else hair or body while trying to hold onto anything they can find inside the micro bus! The bus will be fuming with heat and even with all the windows open, the wind never gets through the barrier of that many people inside the micro to your head, and you can’t even move an inch, but still the conductor yells, “Thaau khaali chha” – There’s still some space in here, I have no idea of what his definition of Space is!! May be he knows too much of Physics stuffs and empty space. To top it all off , well Icing on the cake as it is said, or Sweats on the cake may be? Icing is too far, "Winter is coming" only in Game of Thrones, while we’re mushed up in sweats of summer. And these are the times when the bus driver is in no rush to reach somewhere and the traffic is freaked up. You get stuck in traffic for hours to such an extent that you get dehydrated sitting inside the bus with sweaty backs and fuming internal cabinet with 10 or more people standing in front of you, and you don’t really want to smell the variety of sweats! You can’t walk because it’s too hot and you can’t stay inside the micro bus for too long because it’s literally an oven. I don’t even know the solution to it, increase the micro bus number and then we will have more traffic and leave it as it is, it’s extremely hard to withstand, and most of you who take the microbus from NAC/Newroad area at the peak hour will know it, Try getting a comfortable seat from NAC microstand, you’ve got be lucky not to be standing! 

Eternal universe

Silence,

broken into pieces

of thoughts and dreams

the chains of life and

chains of feelings

holding back,

like gravity

pushing down on me

to the core of the earth

as I’m melting inside me

like a dead star

collapsing under my own weight

under the weight of pain

of your thoughts,

those eyes and that face

that bends the light of my life away from me

as I get forced away into the darkness

of eternal universe

Solving the Rubiks

Untitled

No, I think I should talk
not you, let it be me
I'm good with the words,
since when?
forever,
there's no forever
remember we've just met
how long has it been,
its been forever,
you just didn't know
but again, I'm good with words
So I shall do it,
no I will do it,
you'll ruin it for
you don't even exist
its you who doesn't exist,
how can I not exist,
if I didn't there wouldn't be you
You are because I am ,
I am you and you are me,
so let me say, and let me be
but what about he?
He's not into she,
how can it be?
aren't we all the same?
and you all go by my name?
aren't we just different in our heads
is it just me rambling or
no idiot its your meds
stop it, don't take it anymore
you'll lose us if you do,
but I'll lose her if I don't
what if she leaves you?
we never will
but I want her, not you
you are me and I am you
You want what I want, and
what I want is freedom in you head
and I don't want to lose me,
I love the me inside you,
I am the better you,
Stop, I can't take it anymore
and who is that? never seen him before,
he's you, he's new! 

Jumping Spiders

Spiders are one of the most feared creatures in this world right after snakes, or they may share the top spot for phobias for most people. Despite the immense fear and loathing of spiders at sight of a spider it can’t be denied that they are one of the fascinating creatures. They have strangely unique and peculiar life styles and are found all over the world (except Antarctica) among various environmental conditions. About 40000 species of Spiders have been recognized from all over the world, with lots of new species yet to be recognized for sure. Of all those species only two families of spiders are non-venomous, they lack venom glands. Apart from those two families all other known species are venomous. But only large species of spiders have a fang large enough to penetrate the human skin. It can be said almost 95% of all spiders can’t harm humans. Red Back spiders found in Australia and the Black widow spiders are few of the spiders that kill human beings.

Spiders belong to the class Arachnida, and they differ from other Arthropods in having only two body segments; Cephalothorax and abdomen. The spinnerets, through which spiders extrude silk is located in the abdomen with numerous silk glands.  All known species of Spiders are predators. Most people associate spiders with webs, but not all spiders construct webs. Wolf Spiders, Jumping spiders do not construct webs to trap preys.

The Jumping spiders belong to the family Salticidae containing more than 500 genera and 4500 described species. Jumping spiders are one of the most beautiful spiders. They have best vision among all the other spider species. They are easily distinguishable by the arrangement of their eyes. All jumping spiders have 4 pairs of eyes, with two front eyes being comparatively large as compared to lateral ones. They are found in variety of habitats from forest to grasslands, mountainous regions and even common in houses. They are active hunters; they do not construct a web to catch their prey. They are diurnal as they have to depend upon their vision to hunt and pounce on their prey to catch them. They feed upon other insects. Some of the jumping spiders can jump more than 50 times of their own body length, and even though it doesn’t make a web to catch prey, they do release a filament of silk in case the jumping fails. They have venom gland that helps to paralyze their prey. Most jumping spiders do not live for more than a year. The jumping spiders are believed to be extremely smart. The mating ritual in most species includes moves almost as similar to a dancing. One of the most beautiful spiders has to be Peacock spider (Maratus volans). (fig below)

Peacock spider (Maratus volans)

Though most people associate spiders to be creepy and scary, the fact is they are one of the most important organism in the chain of life, they are friends of humans as they help to control the files and insects, pest harmful to humans and other living forms. Almost everyone I know fears spiders, most of them hate spiders, but I see no point in hating spiders at all, they can’t even hurt us if they wanted to, except the few species. But the point is there are more species of animals that are far more dangerous than Spiders. In case of spiders the hate is based on a book judged by its cover. They aren’t creepy if you know them and you ought to know them to judge them.

                                                          Phidippus putnami

Here's a link to the Courtship display of the Peacock Spider http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEAMq3y0950