Sahyadrica

Harvester Ants, Trichomyrmex  sp., rush in and out of their underground nest carrying grass seeds and husks. If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen Part I: Ants It is no exaggeration when one says that ants are the ultimate animals shaping the world. But no one says it openly or publicly. The very few who write are read by the fewer few who really read only about ants and all things ants do. And ants do everything a man or an elephant does. So, between making a statement calling ants ultimate and having no one to attest to, I’m left only with my fascination for ants to try to back up the bold claim. Anyone who likes any particular organism calls it the ultimate – of course the redwoods are ultimate, the tiger is ultimate, the elephant – ultimate, the woodpecker, the king cobra, so on. Ants are not merely ultimate in that sense. They’re not big or colourful or, in vertebratalist sense, individualistic and intelligent...

This article first appeared in Pench Stripes Magazine , February 2016. The late summer showers trigger a peculiar phenomenon in the forests of central India. The air is moist; the sky a riot of blues and oranges separated by dark wobbly clouds, and the ground is moistened after a long spell of dryness. This sudden change in the temperature, humidity, and the moisture in the ground has signalled a sudden rapid change in the undergrowth. Underneath the surface of the moisture-laden forests, a million animals await to form their own clouds. Vibrating and pulsating with fervid life, the winged termites, called alates, begin their nuptial flight, volleying into the sky as if on a mission. If you happen to be sitting in the veranda, you will witness an upheaval of countless wings silently rising upwards with the warm air that is expelled by the cooling land, gliding down to the lights on your porch, flying aimlessly in an infinite loop around an incandescent source of light. But the...