Indian Wildlife Club Forum

Dummerils black headed snake[Sibynophis subpunctatus]

is one of the uncommon snakes in india becuse this snake is very small and mainly found in forest areas; so sighting of this species is very rare.  I get this snake specimen during my project on Fauna diversity of Rajmachi one of the hot spot from western ghat. I study this specimen for 8 months.  After studying them i found this snake shows different type of Defence behavior i.e it acts like dead snake when the large predator approaches it; also as soon as it  feels predator leave that place it slowly turns the head and moves with fast speed and starst going under the soil. these and many amazing facts i have studied  about this snake.

If you want more details about this snake pls mail on adi_sawant@rediffmail.com

 adi_sawant10@yahoo.com

Peb fort near Matheran is a treat for bird watcher and herpetologist. I  visited  this fort  last Sunday. It was a very harsh treck due to summer heat. On peb fort there were many caves some of them are natural and some of them are man made. in these caves there were many gekos such as

1]Rock geko : Hemidactlylus maculatus.

 2]Ground geko: Gekoella sp.

3] Bark geko:hemidactlyus leschenaltii. 

We also get some snake Species such as

1] rat snake

2] Indian krait: in cave

3] Indian cobra:

At the base of fort a lot of bird species listed there. I watched 42 species in single treck. special achievement of treck is locating two nests of crested serpent eagle. it was an amazing treck. for more details e mail me on adi_sawant@rediffmail.com

One of the beautiful Indian snakes is Forstein's Cat snake. According to the reference in The Book of Indian Reptiles & Amphibians by J.C.Danial(BNHS),this snake is found in forests of western ghats and in Assam.

But last year we found two females of these species with one male too. The sizes were 4'9" ,4'8" and 5'2" respectively.

 I hope that this will be a great finding.

"In Uttar Pradesh the famed Jim Corbett National Park that falls under Shadra-Sahayak Canal Link will bear irreparable losses with the submergence of the elephant reserve area."

says Avinash Kalla in article at the following link

http://www.the-south-asian.com/Aug2004/River-linking.htm

Has anyone one heard of the research in Africa on the recording of Elephant sounds and using those as means (Albeit Still experimental) to 'trick' elephants to avoinding areas? For example, they have learned the sounds( not audible for human ears) with technology to 'warn Lions are approaching'. The elephants go into a defensive mode and avoid areas with that warning call. It's amazing. Surely, this could be done with Asian Elephants. Couldn't it? Just a thought. What if there were a recorded 'Tiger or Leopard approaching call' used?

Jason Fisher (Las Vegas, USA)

Suresh, please tell us where the places you are referring to are.

I had been travelling a lot by road over the past 10 years, and have come across reported sighting of Leapord and Tiger in the Malshej Ghats. Once when we had gone during the Monsoon season during mid noon a Tiger did cross the waterfalls and seen by a lot of picnickers. After that I have been doing rounds from 11.00PM to 4.00AM and sighted a Tiger twice. Many of the lorry drivers who pass the ghats have reported the sightings. In addition I have seen a bunch ( 20 to 25 ) deers near the road that leads to Nane Ghat. Its not very far when the traffic could become a danger to the wildlife as the Big cats have to cross the Highway to reach the river during summer season. Can we take up the issue and reroute the entire ghat road?

Dear Vaibhav,

 If you go to our homepage and write "Mumbai Leopard" in our advanced search button, you will get 10 items which match the words. Please read the article "Leopard Conflict in Sanjay Gandhi National Park." which has further links to published pieces on th esame topic.  Various suggestions have been put forth to save the leopard and the Park.

BNHS is the right NGO to contact in case you can do some voluntary work. Thanks for raising this issue, which is crucial to the well being of all Mumbai residents.

heels on fire

 Ever thought what it would be like to run over 600 km in a month through the Indian state of Kerala that the National Geographic describes as one of the ten paradises on earth?

The chronicles of an insane plan and the adventures of Peter Dulvy - a runner, Desmond Roberts - a photographer and Rahul Noble Singh - a writer. They are giving themselves 30 days to complete the route. Peter on his feet and the others capturing the adventure and life along the way through images and words.

http://heelsonfire.blogspot.com/

http://www.heelsonfire.org/

Hi,

 I wanted to tell the IWC community about an online resource "Scholars without Borders" that I have recently set up. The site www.scholarswithoutborders.in

 lists a number of books on Natural History that are published in India and makes it possible to order these easily online... Also links to a range of Open Access material, journals and newsletters that are published in the subcontinent (e.g. BushChat from the Nature Conservation Foundation, the Himalayan Journal of Science from Nepal, Etc.). If you have suggestions of what books to carry (all of Salim Ali is more or less there!) please write in and let me know, at

mail@scholarswithoutborders.in

 Thanks,

Ram Ramaswamy