Hello, Sparky here.
Ø After meeting
Ms. Keetaki, the visiting otter entomologist last week my interest in insects
was kindled and I did quite a bit of reading on insects this week.
Ø Isn’t it
amazing that we know more of tigers and lions whom we might hardly ever (I am
hoping, never) meet in our lives but know so little of the ‘little ones’ around
us because they live their lives without intruding into our space? Of course,
this is not including the likes of mosquitoes, who intrude our space and lives
every night and even by day – but frankly, I don’t want to know any more about
them than I already know. Knowing it’s only the females who bite us and that
too for the nutrients in the blood which helps make the eggs doesn’t help one
bit to help me fall in love with them.
Ø One of the
insects that I read about this week and have been since mesmerised by is the
Monarch Butterfly. This butterfly weighing about half a gram accomplishes an amazing
feat. They undertake an annual mass migration across the North American
continent covering a distance of 5000 KM from their summer homes to their
winter homes and back again. Many animals and birds also do it but what I find
remarkable about this migration is it takes 4 generations of butterflies to
complete the annual migration which means every section of the journey involves
a butterfly that’s never travelled on that route before nor will it traverse
that path again.
Ø This
migration reminds me of the relay race that humans run. A runner runs the allotted
distance before passing a baton to the next runner to be further passed on till
the last of the 4 runners crosses the finishing line.
Ø It astounds me as to how a creature so tiny ever came to plan such an
itinerary for themselves spanning not just multiple countries but multiple
generations. Do the mothers leave a note for their babies guiding them on the
next leg of the journey? Having never flown that route before how do they know
where to go? How do they identify their destination when they do reach it? Reading
and even comprehending some facts of their journey does not stop puzzling the
mind. Here are some facts, anyway:
o
How do they know when to start the journey?
Environmental cues
o
How do they fly such a vast distance? They use air
currents and thermals to aid their flight.
o
How do they know where to go? They use the natural
indicators of earth’s magnetic field and position of Sun.
My mind is still boggled. I can list some more
questions and provide the answers or possible answers and my mind will continue
to be boggled. Instead, I will use the time and space to write of other things.
Ø Mother Nature and her creations are amazing. She has put a lot of thought
into each aspect of her every creation. One of her creations though has not
only gone off-script but has usurped Mother Nature’s roles as well. We inhabit
a beautiful planet. Earth is teeming with life and life-nurturing conditions
and yet humans destroy everything around like they created it and own it. They
are not just living like there’s no tomorrow, they are also living like there’s
no one else other than them.
Ø Like the rest of us, monarchs’ are also facing a number of threats mostly
due to the humans. Here’s a short list of it:
o Elimination of the milkweed plants on which the caterpillars exclusively
feed on. (Herbicide resistant GMO crops have replaced traditional seeds. These
plants when sprayed with herbicides kill the milkweeds that escaped being
uprooted in the first place by the large-scale farmers.)
o Road-kill
o Caterpillars feed only on milkweed, but there are invasive look-alike
plants from Europe on which an adult monarch lays her eggs which poisons the
caterpillars on hatching.
o Loss of habitat due to illegal logging in places where they spend the
winter.
o Climate change is also creating life-threatening challenges at every
stage of its life and journey.
o Temperatures above 35 °C can be lethal for larvae. Hot and arid
conditions cause the eggs to dry out leading to a drastic decrease in hatch
rate.
o A monarch cannot fly if its body temperature falls below 30 °C.
o Change in weather due to climate change has affected the reproduction
process of the butterflies as well as the flowering cycle of milkweed plants
resulting in mismatch between the butterfly and its food source.
o Human bred-parasite infected butterflies released into the wild by
commercial breeders (who breed them for release on occasions) and hobbyists (who
think they are doing their bit to saving the butterflies by breeding them and
releasing them in thousands) are leading to the wild population catching the
infection.
o Introduction of new species of insectivorous birds in their route, which
are tolerant to the monarch’s toxic. The monarch gets its toxic from eating the
milkweed plant as a caterpillar.
Ø For sure, these are not the only reasons for their death, but these are
the only ones for which Mother Nature had drawn no plans. So, deaths due to
these reasons will at some point bring the species to a point of no-return and
then to extinction.
Ø Am I indulging in human-bashing because reading about the monarch
butterfly inevitably included how humans are a threat to the butterflies too as
they are to each one of us around? Yes and No. What set me off was the fact
that they have discovered ‘possible life’ on the planet Venus. Not even that,
what they have seen is just some gas (phosphine) which, given the conditions on
Venus indicates that there is some microbial organism there which is producing
that gas.
Ø
A discovery is all very well. I am all for learning new things, expanding
our horizons and so on. I would celebrate the ‘life on Venus’ too if I could
just overlook humans’ hypocrisy. And I cannot do that as my life on my own
planet is at risk because of them.
Ø
Humans still don’t get it. They are spending
billions of dollars trying to find an ‘earth-like’ planet even as earth itself
is becoming less of what it was even a century back. What’s the point of making
‘back-up plans’ for future when there is no plan for saving the present? Humans
are supposed to be the most intelligent of the lot, they seem to have come a
full circle and become the dumbest. The time now is for humans to look within,
not without. Each one of their thoughtless actions is causing a ‘Butterfly
effect’ on the rest of us.
Here
are a few activities for this week. Be it your fascination with a subject (like
the monarch butterfly for me this week) or you are the object of something
unpleasant, it’s nice to take some time and enjoy doing something else – like solving
some puzzles.
·
Solve
the riddles below, put the words together and you will get the name of a science
fiction short story which was written in 1952. The
story talks of how ‘a small change could lead to a huge difference’,
which is the essence of what a ‘Butterfly effect’ is.
Here’s an excerpt from the story.
Eckels
felt himself fall into a chair. He looked at the thick mud on his boots. He
broke off a piece of the mud and held it up, shaking, "No, it can't be.
Not a little thing like that. No!"
Stuck
in the mud was a brightly colored butterfly, very beautiful and very dead.
"Not
a little thing like that! Not a butterfly!" cried Eckels. It fell to the
floor, more delicate and colorful than anything seen in this world. A small
thing that could upset balances and cause small changes and then big changes
and then huge changes, all down the years across Time. Eckels mind raced. It
couldn't change things. Killing one butterfly couldn't be that important! Could
it?
|
|
This
is how the alpha beta count begins |
|
|
Your
ears pick it up if it’s within range, Your
brain sorts it and tells you if it’s familiar or strange. |
|
|
Expresses
relationship between parts and whole, Is
a preposition. Also
shows belonging, origin and possession.
|
|
|
This
is what follows a lightning, If
you shout angrily, you would be doing this and
that would be frightening. |
·
Here
are some idioms from space – match the idiom in column 1 with its meaning in
column 2:
·
Crossword
puzzle for the week:
- Here are a few creatures – can you identify them.
See
you all next week with more news, activities and answers to this week’s
puzzles.
In the meanwhile, if you would like to write to me, email me at Sparkyatbanyan@gmail.com
Answers to last week’s puzzles:
·
Here’s
a funny photo of a langur grooming another langur. This was clicked in Jim Corbett National
Park, Uttarakhand, India. Look at the photo and identify all the objects in the
photo starting with the letter ‘L’.
This
is by no means an exhaustive list of answers. What has got exhausted is my
‘imagination’ and ‘inclination’.
o
Langurs
o
Light
o
Leaves
o
Life
o
Legs
o
Lice (The langur is looking for lice
in the other langur)
o
Leisure (A leisure-time activity of
grooming)
o
Lean (The langur who is being groomed
is sort of leaning)
o
Lots (of leaves)
o
Look (the langur is ‘looking’ for
louse)
o Laid-back (the langurs are relaxed and at ease.
·
Analogical reasoning questions.
Understand the relation between the first 2 words in the first column and then
extending the same logic to the next two words, find the answer amongst the
choices in the next 4 columns:
|
|
|
Hobby |
Meaning |
|
Conchology |
Collecting
Seashells |
|
Philately |
Collecting
stamps |
|
Phillumeny |
Collecting
matchboxes |
|
Birding |
Observing
birds in their natural habitats |
|
Ikebana |
Floral
Arrangement |
|
Decoupage |
Decorating
objects with paper cut-outs |
|
Quilling |
Using
strips of paper for artwork |
‘Little
readers’ Section’
·
Here’s a photo of a female Rose-ringed
Parakeet sitting next to a Bottlebrush flower. What do you think the Parakeet
does next?
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