Our backyard (or the sideyard!) is always buzzing with activity. I blogged about the kodukkapuli tree sometime back. Now the attention turns toward the Castor plant. Many of you know that the Castor oil is extracted from the seeds of this common plant that grows widely in plains. This is the larval host plant of a common butterfly called Common Castor. This photo blog captures the lifecycle of this lovely butterfly.
The Common castor laying eggs on the big leaves of the Castor plant.
You can notice that the leaves have already been eaten by some caterpillars of the Common Castor that thrive on these leaves!
We noticed quite a few caterpillars actively feeding on the leaves.
As is customary, we picked a few caterpillars along with a generous collection of castor leaves and left them in a large plastic container. They quickly pupated directly on the surface of the plastic container, instead of the stem of the leaves.
Some images of the pupa in different stages.
Unlike the Common Grass Yellow butterflies all the Common Castors emerged successfully!
One of them spent some time in a dry branch nearby
The Kodukkapuli tree and the Castor are native plants and support a wide variety of life unlike some of the exotics!
First things first. What is Kodukkapuli? Tamilians who grew up in small towns and villages will immediately recognize this! It gets its name from the peculiar fruit resembling tamarind. It has a sweet-and-sour taste and was popular with children when I was schooling. The short and spiny tree is also called Madras Thorn or Manila Tamarind, which goes by the scientific name Pithecellobium dulce. Not sure of any connection with Madras or Manila, but sure enough, this tree grows in the vacant plot near my house!
It all started during this hot summer when Poornima noticed a common grass yellow butterfly busily laying eggs on the plant. A quick check with experts confirmed that this is one of the Larval host plants of the butterfly. A close look at the plant revealed a large number of larvae on the plant. We quickly collected a few to watch them at home.
Very soon we noticed one of them hanging on to a slanting branch, ready to pupate.
The very next day it has metamorphosed into a pupa!
Butterfly species choose to attach the pupa to a branch at a delicate angle. They do this for a purpose. When the butterfly emerges from the pupa, its wings will be fully curled up and maybe wet. It needs to hold on to the empty pupa shell with its wings dangling down for an extended period of time. This allows for the wings to dry and slowly flatten to have functional pairs of wings. A very critical part of the transformation to a butterfly!
We had four of the larvae that converted to a pupa in this small dabba. Please spot all the 4 pupae, if you can!
In a short period of around a week, we had two butterflies emerge. One of them quickly flew away.
Another one spent enough time posing with Poornima for photographs!
An empty pupa shell
But two of them didn’t make it.
One of them was almost out of the shell but just could not extricate itself. Note the ants around – anything dead gets cleaned up quickly!
You can see here the Common Grass Yellow laying an egg!
Finally, here’s the egg of the Common Grass yellow where it all starts!!
While all of this drama was going on, during one of my visits to the tree, I noticed this looper moth, feeding vigorously on the leaf.
This one was resting!
I clicked a video of it actively feeding as well.
We didn’t know the ID of the Moth, but we decided to bring along a few of them (4 again incidentally!) and added them to a separate container with a thin cloth covering the mouth of the container. We had left a few of the branches like we do with butterflies to help the larva pupate. But we noticed that the larvae were frantically moving around on the base of the container ( I guess looking for a safe place to pupate). But eventually, all 4 of them pupated at the bottom of the container.
After this, both of us had to travel to Bangalore and were away for 4 days, during which Anirudh noticed two of the moths emerge. Finally, on the day we returned, the last two moths emerged from the pupa. One of them flew away as soon as I opened the container and settled in a corner of the building.
The Second one stayed for some time in the container. The Moth seems to be Chiasmia sp, more specifically Chiasmia eleonora. Need to be confirmed.
Besides these, we found hundreds of these hairy caterpillars frantically scouring the ground for a safe place to pupate!
We didn’t have time to explore this species. All of this action happened over a period of two weeks in hot summer!
It is amazing how this thorny, short and stubby tree supports such a wide variety of life! These small trees that make food from sunlight sustain all of life on earth including you and me. As the species get more and more intelligent, they become increasingly selfish and take more from nature than give. You know where we fit in all of this!
Some of the mushrooms I found in the Western Ghats looked large and very colorful. I got curious and researched into the type of the fungus and found that these are called Shelf Fungi. These fungi have large fruiting bodies with pores / tubes on the underside. They feed primarily on dead wood and grow on trunks / branches of trees.
When they grow on a tree, they have a horizontal shelf like look. Thus they are called Shelf Fungus (also known as Polypores).
Just like other fungi, the Shelf fungus serves an ecological function of decomposing the wood of a dead tree or fallen branch. However if it is found on an otherwise healthy tree (as in the picture above), it is an early indication of the decay of a tree.
They are also called bracket fungus because from a top angle some of them look like a perfect bracket!
This looks like a left bracket. If clicked in a different angle, this could be a right bracket 😉
Size
Unlike the regular mushrooms that we consume, the Shelf fungi can grow to be very large – size of 40 cm or more of diameter is not very uncommon. The largest fruiting body ever found was seen in the Hainan Island of China. It measured 10.8 meters in length, 82 to 88 cms in Width and weighed an estimated 400 to 500 kgs!
Texture and Color
While some of the Shelf fungi are dull in color, many of them have beautiful patterns and are very colorful. Some of these colorful shelf fungi I have clicked in the Western Ghats for your viewing pleasure!
Now, let us come to the texture of the shelf fungi. They are typically woody or leathery. Some of them can be fleshy as well. A few of the shelf fungi are edible, while most of them are not. Shelf fungi don’t typically have a stem unlike a typical Mushroom. A few of them have a short lateral stem like the one shown below.
Medicinal Uses
While most of the Shelf fungi are not edible, many of them are used in Herbal medicine. Since they are hard, the fungi are ground and used in herbal teas as medicine. The Reishi or Lingzhi (Ganoderma lingzhi) shelf fungus is used in traditional Chinese medicines. Chinese texts have recorded medicinal uses of lingzhi for more than 2,000 years. Their extract seems to be used for treatment of cancer, metabolic and cardiovascular diseases though there is insufficient evidence of it’s efficacy. Another herbal Shelf fungus is Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor). An extract from Turkey Tail is considered safe for use as an adjunct therapy for cancer treatment in Japan.
Ecology and Conservation
Over one thousand polypore species have been described, but a large part of the diversity is still unknown even in relatively well-studied temperate areas. They are much more diverse in old natural forests with abundant dead wood than in younger managed forests or plantations. Consequently, a number of species have declined drastically and are under threat of extinction due to logging and deforestation.
The hard woody shelves of the shelf fungi are a micro habitat. They provide a unique place for animals to live. Spiders, mites, and insects live in large shelves. A few of the insects are specialized and only found in shelf fungi. Some beetles are very slim so they can fit inside a pore. They hide in a pore and eat spores. There are enough insects and other animals that a food web is created. The spiders and some insects are predators that feed on other insects. Their prey include fly larvae and small insects.
Another observation from my garden, only now the insights are more fascinating. This involves three different species and their symbiotic relationships. Read on to learn more!
Amruthaballi vine – Tinospora cordifolia
This is a medicinal plant (local common names – giloy, gurjo, amruthaballi) indigenous to tropical regions of India. It is a climbing shrub with several elongated twining branches. These have heart shaped leaves and bright red fruits that attract birds. It is a fast-growing shrub. The ones in my balcony garden have climbed two floors clinging on to the rain water drain and can be seen on the terrace!
White-footed Ant – Technomyrmex albipes
These are small ants 2 to 4 mm long with legs that have white lower parts, which gives it the name. Foraging for food is done by worker ants, which also build and care for the nest and care for the brood (larvae and pupae). It is considered a pest because it is found foraging in kitchens, bathrooms, and building exteriors. Their feeding behavior leads to the main part of the story. Wait for it!
Cotton Mealybug – Phenacoccus solenopsis
These are common pests of many plants and considered a serious agricultural pest. These are soft-bodied insects covered with white, waxy and cottony material. The white fluff around their body helps prevent loss of moisture and protect from excessive heat.
Symbiosis – Parasitism
Now comes the symbiotic relationship between two species – Tinospora plant and the mealybug. In this case the mealybug is a parasite on the Tinospora plant. Parasitism is the type of symbiosis in which the parasite will benefit from the relationship while the host is affected adversely. I noticed that in our garden the cotton mealybug seems to be prevalent over nodules where fresh leaves are sprouting. I guess it is because these are places with a high concentration of nutrients to support the newly growing leaves. In this relationship the mealybug benefits from the nutrients with no apparent benefit to the plant.
Symbiosis – Mutualism
Now we come to the most interesting part, the symbiotic relationship between the cotton mealybug and the white-footed ant. It is Mutualism in which both the species stand to benefit. The mealybug provides food to white-footed ant in exchange for protection from predators and transport to different parts of the host plant!
How does this work? The mealybug takes nutrients from the plant. It provides excess nutrient in the form of a “Honey dew” to the ants after some “tending” by the ant. The ants stand over the mealybugs and start caressing them (called tending). After some time, the mealybugs slowly exude a bubble of honeydew that the ants pick up and feed on!
You can see the process of tending in the video from my garden below. Around 19 secs into the video, a mealybug has started exuding the honeydew. The ants picks up the honeydew at 32 secs. You can see the second smaller ant quickly pick up another honeydew at 42 secs.
Ecosystem and symbiotic relationships
Here’s some food for thought. The world that we live in is a complex ecosystem, a web of interconnections between different species in the form of symbiotic relationships. Everything is connected to everything else! There are many different types of symbiosis – mutualism, commensalism, parasitism, predation and competition. Our understanding of how the genetic material carries hereditary information across generations led to an interpretation of the “Survival of the fittest”. This provides a view of a “dog-eat-dog” world where everything is competing with each other to survive. But this worldview addresses only a small part of the symbiotic relationships. The large ecosystem (which humans are part of) has a rhythm for all different species to survive without having to compete with each other all the time. Till the humans started playing with it!
On a rainy day during this quite wet extended monsoon, while observing the plants in my balcony garden I noticed that the Tinospora leaves (popularly known as amruthavalli or giloy) were extensively eaten around one of the pots.
I was curious and started looking around and found a few very small snails – less than half a centimeter long in the soil! When I looked closely, there were quite a few hiding below leaves and crevices. I did some research and found that these are Horntail snails (Macrochlymus indica) and are considered pests.
The first few I saw were very small and had a brilliant golden glow to the shell!
The rear of the snail has this protrusion that looks like a horn, hence it is called a Horntail Snail
The older ones have duller looking shells.
While looking around I also noticed a few conical shells. Turns out there is another species of snail in the garden!
Not sure about the identification of the second species of snail with a conical shell!
Isn’t it amazing that we can see two species of snails in a pot two floors up in the middle of a concrete jungle!
A little bit more information about land snails I gathered. Land snails constitute about six per cent of the total species on Earth. A large part of molluscan fauna in many tropical regions of the world is still poorly known. They form an important component of the forest ecosystem by recycling nutrients and are the prey base for a number of small mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and other invertebrates, including carnivorous snails.
The shell of a snail has it’s purpose – retain moisture, protection from predator and weather. While water snails and sea snails have the buoyancy to lighten the load, the land snails have to carry the full weight of the shell while moving around. For this reason the land snails are typically limited in size.
A rare sighting of a bird is something that birders look forward to. While we were birding at Valley School, we discussed about the sighting of a Black Baza in Muthanallur lake, a rare sighting that we did not want to miss. Despite being tired we decided to try our luck. We could not get to see the Baza, but witnessed a drama enacted by a pair of common coots.
While we were on the tank bund, we noticed a pair of Coots making agitated alarm calls.
We saw a juvenile Brahminy kite swooping in for a kill directly amidst the coots.
The reason for the alarm of the coots became clear when we noticed the chicks that were swimming along! The Coots made a valiant attempt at chasing away the Kite.
The chicks immediately went for a dive into water. One chick dives in first.
Another chick dived in, while the adults try to relentlessly chase away the Brahminy Kite.
The adults didn’t give up till the Brahminy flew away.
The lovely chicks resurfaced!
The chicks discussed with a parent on what happened!
The parents then guided them away to a safer place.
The parents moved the chicks to the safety of Water Hyacinths.
Q: When I am exploring the app, it sometimes crashes saying “Unfortunately the app has stopped”
A: You are most likely at the bleeding edge of Android! This problem has been reported on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) for apps built for Lollipop or earlier. We have tried the following steps. It seems to work.
Goto settings & click on Apps
Search for “Android System Webview” & select it
You will see a button called “Uninstall Updates”
Click on it.
Once the updates are uninstalled, restart the device
The app should work fine now. Let us know if the issue still persists.
Q: Why am I seeing only 300+ birds in the list while I know that there are 1290 bird species in the Indian Subcontinent?
A: What you see in the Landing page of the application is the list of all birds that can be seen in and around the GPS location that you are in. It is already filtered for your location. You can see the most number of species…. yes, you are right in the North East!
Q: If the birds are filtered for my location, why am I seeing some unlikely species, say Great Indian Bustard around Bangalore?
A: The birds are shortlisted based on the Distribution maps in the popular field guide – “Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (Second Edition) by Richard Grimmett, Carol Inskipp and Tim Inskipp”. Since the Distribution maps themselves are small, the prediction is for an area of around 100 km radius from your current GPS location.
Q: I have added some birds in the “Track Bird” feature for tracking. I would like to stop tracking this bird. How do I delete it?
A: Throughout the app, a common feature is ‘deletion by swipe out’. You can swipe on an entry to delete it. Of course, you will be asked to confirm the deletion. This will work on
It was sometime in early 2014 when we had this lively discussion on a Whatsapp group on a possible Android App for birdwatchers to identify birds in the field. We decided to pursue it seriously and had a few meetings in MBK’s favourite haunt Koshy’s, a few nearby restaurants, CCDs and some homes with nice snacks and coffee being served.This laid the foundation for this app. Between the time we spend at work and home, some of us managed to complete build this app and release it. How glad I am that we managed it!
I am giving here some of the key features of the app with a little more details than what you will find on Play Store.
Nearby
This feature identifies all the likely species that can be seen at the current location based on the distribution maps from the popular field guide – “Birds of the Indian Subcontinent (Second Edition) by Richard Grimmett, Carol Inskipp and Tim Inskipp”. The landing page of the app shows the number of shortlisted birds for the location.
It also allows you to explore the birds at the location by further filtering on criteria like season and size, and viewing their images.
The user can choose a different location, say Andaman islands, and explore the birds that can be seen in that place. This can be particularly useful when you are planning to visit a place.
Hotspots
You will see a map (opened at the current location at the centre) with all the hotspots located in the 30 km radius from the centre. These hotspots are picked from the e-bird database.
You can click on any hotspot to view the list of species that have been reported there in the last 30 days. In case you are interested in visiting this place, you can get driving direction, or even drive right away!
This can be particularly useful if you are visiting a place for the first time, and would like to know the hotspots in that location and drive to them.
Logger
This will let you log all the birds that you have seen during a field trip. This feature is similar to the eBird app from Cornell Lab of Ornithology, except that we cannot submit them directly to e-bird. This feature is planned to be added in the future.
The advantage with this version of the logger is that you will see ‘only’ the bird species that you can see in India. The names of the birds also will be as per the Grimmett / Inskipp field guide.
Track
This feature lets you track particular bird(s) for their sighting. Once you add a bird of your interest, you will receive a notification if the bird(s) is reported in e-bird in the past 24 hours.
Opening the app will give you more details on the sighting like location, latitude/longitude, etc.. Clicking on a sighting will take you to the particular location at which the bird was reported on the Google maps.
You can review this Youtube video too.. Please explore the app & let us know your feedback, either on the Facebook Page ‘Bird Explorer’, or by sending a mail to birdplaceapp@gmail.com
Navratri kolu with hand made dolls in Mythili Ramesh’s house
Navaratri is the celebration of the shakti . This festival is devoted solely to the Mother Goddess. In Tamil Nadu, people set up steps and place idols on them. This is known as golu .In the evening women in neighborhood invite each other to visit their homes to view Kolu displays, they exchange gifts and sweets. These nine days are filled with special pujas, yagnas, homas, fasting, meditations and singing. Golu or Kolu is the display of dolls during Navratri in South India especially in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Kerala.
The Marapachi dolls in my Mothers house
‘Marapachi’ Bommai is an important part of Kolu. During display, the wooden couple is beautifully adorned with colorful attires and jewellery. The Marapachi dolls are made of Red Sanders tree . Earlier days this is the toy given to kids as a teeth soother when they were teething . Kids are exposed to the wood which has high medicinal value. As a child I remember playing with these dolls. I used to never get tired dressing them up with clothes and beads.
Marapachi dolls decked up as Thirupathi Venkatchalapathy and Alamelu Thayar – Mythili Ramesh
The Marapachi dolls are a proud possession for many people and are handed down generations. There is also a tradition of parents gifting their married daughter Marapachi bommai so that she can start Navratri Kolu display in her house. And also it holds the monuments of the marriage occassion when there were no photos.
Pterocarpus santalinus Linn.f., commonly known as Red sanders, belongs to the family Fabaceae. It is endemic to India and considered globally endangered, with illegal harvest being a key threat. The plant is renowned for its characteristic timber of exquisite color, beauty, and superlative technical qualities. The red wood yields a natural dye santalin, which is used in coloring pharmaceutical preparations and foodstuffs. The heartwood can accumulate various elements and rare earth elements like strontium cadmium, zinc, copper and uranium having potential applications as control rods and moderators in nuclear reactors.
Medicinal values of Red Sanders:
It has been used in inducing vomiting and treating eye diseases, mental aberrations,rheumatic pain and ulcers.
A paste of the wood is used to give cooling effect, applied externally for inflammations and head-ache.
The wood in combination with other drugs is also prescribed for snake bites and scorpion stings in traditional medicine.
It is really amazing to know how this valuable tree has been incorporated in our traditions.
Pterocarpus santalinus- Red Sanders
But sadly indeed illegal felling and smuggling of red sanders sandalwood trees has been generating huge money for the past decade. Increased demand in the global market is the reason for its large scale smuggling.
For a detailed report on smuggling of Red Sanders click here
The brightly colored Ayyanar temples cannot be missed as one drives down the highways in Tamilnadu. Every village has colorful deities sheltered by trees of the Sacred grove. Sacred groves are those patches of woodland dedicated to a deity /Guardian /Ancestral Spirit and protected by local community.
“Treating Trees and Woods as Sacred has been an integral part of the social and religious consciousness of old civilizations all over the world. The Institution of Sacred Groves goes back to the pre-agrarian period, before humans started tilling land. It was based on the belief that all Creations of Nature are worthy of respect and preservation.Marking a stand of trees as “Sacred” ensures preservation of the grove as lung space, encouraging bio diversity , maintaining soil fertility , regulating local hydrology and offering refuge to a variety of animal species too. Logging and Poaching , minimised. Reverence for groves/forests influences local community towards sustainable utilization of Natural Resources, as boons granted by The Spirit of The Forest.” Says Ms. Vidya Murali, In her facebook page Traditions.
As I was pondering about the importance of these sacred groves, it so happened that we had our annual Sudarshana homam at my place. During the homam, the priest was raving about the special samithu that was used for Sudarshana Homam, I went on to gather more information on this special twig.
Achyranthes aspera with inset of the twig used for Sudarshana Homam.
Achyrantes aspera is the botanical name of this plant. Achyranthes aspera L. (prickly chaff flower) has occupied a pivotal position in Indian culture and folk medicine. Since ancient times the tribal and rural people of India commonly use this herb in various disorders.This has been effective in treating snake and scorpion bites.The plant has innumerable properties that include antidiabetic, anticancer, Diuretic, hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, anti-arthritic, antiparasitic, Anti-oxidant, antihyperlipidemic, Anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, Spermicidal , anti-viral, anti-asthmatic, anti-epileptic, Antinociceptive, Anti-depressant and Anti-obesity. Anti-larvicidial properties of mosquitoes that spread Dengue, Malaria and lymphatic filariasis.
It is believed that by performing Sudarshana Homa one can get best protection from all evils, dosha nivaran, troubles from enemies,black magic,evil eye, fear and persecution by evil sprits and health problems. It is seen from the literature that Achyranthes aspera is a very important plant for its large number of medicinal properties. Thus, Achyranthes aspera is proved to be a multipurpose medicinal agent, thus instrumental in curing large number of ailments.
The study of mythological associations of faith in plants among the folk is a fascinating area with immense possibilities of insight into the causes of these associations. It amazing as to how such a valuable herb has been incorporated in religious practice for the benefit of people who follow it. This herb is a perfect example of how Botany has been weaved into religious beliefs.
More interesting articles can be found in the following links
I like to observe insects, butterflies, birds and trees and their interconnections with each other.With keen interest in urban wildlife and butterflies I have reared some of them. Blogging is my religion. I love to share my experiences in my blog https://wanttobeanomad.wordpress.com.
Some of my stories have been published in The Traveller.in - Hindu .
I am a freelance communication consultant with special interest in organizations that work for a social cause.