Butterflies, beetles and dragonflies declining in Europe!

The Violet Copper Lycaena helle (Endangered) is a rare and threatened butterfly in Europe. Photo : Chris van Swaay

Habitat loss is having a serious impact on Europe’s butterflies, beetles and dragonflies, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said today. Nine percent of butterflies, 11 percent of saproxylic beetles (beetles that depend on decaying wood) and 14 percent of dragonflies are threatened with extinction within Europe, the Switzerland-based conservation organization said in a news release.

Read more on Vijay Barve’s Biodiversity India blog post here.

Download the section of the IUCN Red List on European butterflies here.

The situation is far worse in India. Even worse our scientific footprint is so weak, we don’t even have comparable data. God preserve my beloved country’s wildlife!

Image credit : IUCN. Displayed under “Fair use”.

The CME wetlands are featured on DNA

The CME wetlands have been featured today on page 2 of the DNA Newspaper (Pune edition). The occasion had been a visit on 7th March 2010 by the students of an extra-mural ecology course conducted by  Dr Prakash Gole’s Ecological Society. Our wetlands have featured prominently. Authored by Rahul Chandawarkar, a reporter and columnist with DNA.

Image credit & copyright : DNA Pune Edition. Click on the image to enlarge.

Nominee! “Sarson Patal” for the Best Travel Post!

“Sarson Patal“, a post on this Blog has made it to the final six in the Best Travel Post category! Click the logo to learn about the Avant Garde Bloggies Awards started by Visceral Observations. The six posts can be found here. All the travel posts are good. In keeping with good sportsmanship I have voted for one of the other blog posts (other than my own) which I consider as the best of the rest.

Read all six and enjoy. There’s no need to vote for me. Vote for whichever you feel in good conscience is the best. To have reached here itself is great!

Climate change and butterflies

This report appeared in the Statesman on 19 Mar 2010. For the first time, cause-effect relationship between climate change and a living organism has been shown with regards to a butterfly, the Common Brown, Heteronympha merope in Melbourne.

Common Brown (Heteronympha merope)

Image Credit

• Common Brown – Ian Sutton (Flickr) on Wikimedia Commons. License Creative Commons 2.0 (Generic). Click the image to reach the source page.