Kerala forests home to new spider species

Aathira Perinchery, Kochi
The Hindu, Arpil 6 2019

A group of jumping spiders that mostly occur in Eurasia and Africa, has been spotted for the first time in Ernakulam’s Illithodu forests by arachnologists from Kochi’s Sacred Heart College, Thevara. The team also found that the spider belonging to the genus (a taxonomic classification above species) Habrocestum is a species new to science.
The team came across the different-looking spiders — six of them, predominantly brownish-black in colour with white and creamy-yellow patches — while conducting a routine survey (funded by the Department of Science and Technology-Science and Engineering Research Board) for ground-dwelling spiders in the Illithodu reserve forests of the Malayatoor forest division, barely 60 km from here. Back in their laboratory, they examined the physical features of males and females. They also compared these to similar-looking spider specimens collected earlier from the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary.
A detailed examination of the spiders’ physical features revealed that they belong to the genus Habrocestum that has been recorded mostly in Eurasia and Africa and never in India, till now. Comparisons with studies of European Habrocestum spiders revealed that the spiders from Illithode are a new species altogether, for they had distinctly different reproductive organs.
The spider also has a single long spine on the underside of both its first legs, and this gave it its scientific name Habrocestum longispinum (after Latin ‘longe’ meaning long and ‘spinae’ for spine). “It measures just around 2 mm and seems to prefer dry habitats, dwelling in forest litter,” said Mathew M. Joseph, assistant professor at Sacred Heart College and a co-author of the study published in the Journal of Natural History last month.
While more detailed ecological studies are required, threats could include unregulated tourism activities and even climate change (which could affect the small insects by altering the specific micro-climates that they prefer), he said.
The study extends the range of these spiders to India. The discovery also lends support to the continental drift theory that suggests that the world’s continents were one large, contiguous landmass where these creatures thrived many millions of years ago, added Dr. Joseph.

Read more »

Greens come to rescue of Olive ridley turtles

Sam Paul A, Alappuzha
The Hindu, April 6, 2019

Overcoming the challenges posed by the August deluge, heatwave and other impediments, environmentalists and local people have incubated and released 226 hatchlings of endangered Olive ridley turtle to sea at Thottappally coast. The last of the hatchlings of the current nesting season were let into sea on Friday morning.
The Thottappally coast is one of the prime locations for egg-laying turtles in the State. According to environmentalists, they stumbled upon only three nests with a total of 342 eggs during the entire season as against 11 nests a year ago. Last year, 1,648 hatchlings were released to the sea.
“This season, the first nest with 106 eggs was found just before the floods in August 2018. When the floodwaters started to submerge the area, we built a small concrete tank with roof and placed the eggs in it for incubation.
The entire tank was then covered with plastic to prevent the water from entering it. Although it took more time than usual, 53 eggs have been hatched. Further, two more clutches with 120 and 116 eggs have been found after the turn of the year. Despite the dry conditions, of the 116 eggs in the third nest 110 eggs have been hatched,” Saji Jayamohan, secretary, Green Roots Nature Conservation Forum, told The Hindu.

Sea erosion

Mr. Jayamohan said the floods and sea erosion had eroded around seven acres of the coast that used to be the main nesting sites of Olive ridleys.
“Other than the damage caused by the floods, the presence of stray dogs and mineral sand-mining at the Thottappally harbour also prevented turtles from nesting in the area,” he said.
The environmentalists said lack of a permanent hatchery and rescue centre hampered their conservation efforts.
At present, after Olive ridleys lay eggs, the environmentalists and social forestry officials, with the help of local people, relocate eggs to temporary hatcheries from areas with tidal fluctuations. Also, they want to protect it from stray dogs and other dangers.
Although a proposal for a permanent hatchery has been submitted to the government, the project is yet to get the nod.
Other than the mineral sand-mining at the Thottappally harbour, the move to extract mineral sand from the Thottappally estuary will further adversely impact the nesting of turtles, the environmentalists warned.

Read more »

Fire ravages Kurinji sanctuary, Pampadum Shola

Giji K Raman, Idukki

The Hindu, April 2 2019

The wildfires that started at Anchunadu and Vattavada four days ago reached the proposed Kurinji sanctuary and Pampadum Shola National Park on Tuesday, causing large-scale destruction.
Sources in the Forest Department said large plantations of grantis and eucalyptus were destroyed in the fires and if an emergency intervention was not made, it would engulf the entire Pampadum Shola National Park and the proposed Kurinji sanctuary.
According to an official of the Munnar forest division, a team of over 250 members comprising local people and staff of the Forest Department were working hard to douse the fire.

In all directions

He said the fires were spreading at different directions, making the counter-measures ineffective. They created a firewall by felling trees, but that too proved ineffective as the fires spread to large areas in different directions, he said.
Though official estimates said that only 100 acres of land was destroyed in the fires, unofficial estimates said that over 500 acres of forestland was destroyed.
The wildfire engulfed the areas of Kadavari and 65th block (Kurinji Sanctuary), Pampadum Shola and Vattavada on Tuesday.
A Forest Department official said that the fires were man-made and were done in the Kurinji sanctuary with ulterior motives. Last year also, wildfires were reported inside the sanctuary prior to the blossoming of neelakurinji (Strobilanthes kunthiana).
It was done by the land mafia so as to avoid the inclusion of the area in the proposed Kurinji sanctuary, he said adding the fires would destroy neelakurinji seeds.

Heritage site

The Pampadum Shola is a protected biodiversity spot and is known for its unique flora and fauna.
The Western Ghats Anamalai sub-cluster, including the park, is under consideration by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee for selection as world heritage site.
Unless an immediate intervention was made, there was a threat of the fire destroying the flora and fauna of the Pampadum Shola.
The shola had completely dried-up areas of grasslands, the official added.

Read more »

Kerala is home to two new plant species

Aathira Perinchery, Kochi
The Hindu, April 3, 2019

A small ironwood tree that bears clumps of white flowers on its stalks, and a new species of wild fern are the latest additions to Kerala’s flora.
Researchers at the University of Calicut’s Department of Botany discovered the new species of ironwood, Memecylon idukkianum, from the borders of a shola forest (a high-altitude evergreen forest) in Idukki’s Mathikettan Shola National Park during a three-year plant survey there.
The discovery, published in the international peer-reviewed journal Kew Bulletin (the official journal of the United Kingdom's Royal Botanic Gardens) last month, details the features of the plant and where it grows.
The plant, that grows to the size of a small tree, can be identified apart from other Memecylon species by its pure white stalk-less flowers borne on its stalks during February and March, said research scholar S. Syam Radh, who discovered the plant along with Santhosh Nampy (Head, Department of Botany, University of Calicut).
Currently, the plant is known only from within the Mathikettan Shola National Park and its immediate environs.

Eight locations

The researchers found the plant growing in only eight locations here, some of which are vulnerable to anthropogenic activities.
Due to these potential threats as well as its rarity, the team suggests that the species be categorised as ‘Near Threatened’ based on criteria listed in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
However, the other plant discovered recently, the wild fern Pteris subiriana, is found not just in Kerala but also Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.
A team including researchers from Kolkata’s Botanical Survey of India first collected the fern from Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra and then compared those plants with existing herbarium specimens of similar ferns species in several plant collections.
Using a scanning electron microscope, they studied the arrangement of the ferns' spores (small globules located under fern leaves through which ferns reproduce).
This showed that these ferns — which grow near waterfalls — are a new species, according to their study published in the international journal Phytotaxa.

Mushroom species

Another team from the University of Calicut has also described a new species of mushroom from Kerala, based on detailed studies of its physical features and by using genetic methods as well.
The new species Laccaria violaceotincta is currently known only from the single area it has been collected from by the team: the threatened myristica swamps of Kulathupuzha in Kollam district.

Read more »