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Actor Karthi and his wife Ranjani have become proud parents for the second time. The lovely couple welcomed a baby boy on Tuesday. Taking to his Twitter handle, Karhti announced the happy news.
“Dear friends and family, we are blessed with a boy baby. We can’t thank enough our doctors and nurses who took us through this life changing experience. need all your blessings for the little one. Thank you god!”, tweeted Karthi.
Nine new species of animals were discovered in Himachal Pradesh last year, including an insect which has been named after a high school student who spotted it, according to Animal Discoveries 2019, a report released by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) recently.
In Kinnaur’s Sangla valley, an amoeba-like organism named Cyclopyxis leidy earlier known from France and Indonesia was reported for the first time in India. Sangla also reported a new record of another single-celled organism, Assulina quadratum, earlier known from parts of Europe.
Across the country, 368 new animal species were discovered in 2019, including 294 invertebrates and 74 vertebrates. In Kerala, a new fish was named after Gollum, a fictional character from JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, while another one was named Pangio bhujia after the popular Indian snack. A true bug found in Tamil Nadu was named after PM Narendra Modi.
The report said that during the last decade, nearly 2,500 species have been discovered in India, a mega-biodiverse country. The total faunal diversity in India now comprises around 1.02 lakh species which is 6.5 per cent of the global diversity
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Sergey Gorshkov has been awarded the title of Wildlife Photographer of the Year for his exceptional image of a Siberian tiger scent-marking in a remote forest of Russia.
The competition jury were delighted to see an image of a tiger scent-marking, a rarely photographed behaviour. Judge Susan McElhinney described the winning image as ‘a rare and intimate glimpse of a very endangered species going about its daily rounds of checking its territorial boundaries or scent-marking, leaving messages and reading the messages of other cats’.
This important part of their behaviour helps tigers to avoid conflict with each other. As judge Jaime Rojo explains, ‘These Siberian tigers really need large, well-protected tracts of habitat to survive. Each of them has a big territory.’
Sadly, large-scale deforestation in the region has threatened the habitat of Siberian tigers. As parts of the forest are destroyed, these animals are being forced further into each other’s territory, creating an increased chance of conflict.
This, Jaime explains, is why tigers do scent marking: ‘They are trying to avoid conflict. If another male trespasses on their territory there will be confrontation, and wild animals try and avoid confrontation.’
© Sergey Gorshkov
