Photo: Sudip Bhattacharya/Entry-Sanctuary Wildlife Photography Award 2014. It is lso fragmented by development projects, ever-increasing human settlements, and resource extraction from the forests. It was hit by a devastating flash flood in 013, causing immense destruction o the forests and the people. The area is well-protected because of its inaccessibility, but threatened by natural disasters such as landslides and forest fires.
A transition zone between the Zanskar Range and the great Himalaya, this region is a mosaic of habitats and landscapes, which is responsible for its unique wildlife. The steep rugged landscapes of the Nanda Devi National Park and the gentle rolling meadows of the Valley of Flowers National Park, both World Heritage Sites, have not been the subject of too much study. I have been working in the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve, trying to understand the diversity of moths using morphology and genetics.
It has been a journey of three years since, and an adventure that has left me more and more intrigued by one of the ‘little things that run the world! Honestly, when I started out as a moth ecologist, I was more thrilled at the prospect of an ‘all expenses paid trip to explore the Himalaya, than studying moths. This was one of the earliest examples of human impact on wildlife and how some species evolve to survive adversity.īut how do we perceive moths now? To most people who are not moth aficionados, moths are perhaps ‘dark creatures from Hollywood thrillers (the symbolic Deaths-head hawkmoth in Silence of the Lambs), or drab insects hovering around lights! Yes, they are also known for their suicidal flight towards fire and as the less-appealing cousins of butterflies. It wiped out the original morph by the end of the 19th century.
Going back to our school textbooks, the most prominent example of Darwins theory of natural selection was that of the peppered moth Biston betularia, which evolved a new black morph in the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution in the United Kingdom.
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