General Awareness

ENVIRONMENT - June 2019

Jun 2019

Feb 07, 2021

Smallest Reptile on Earth Discovered in Madagascar

Scientists believe they may have discovered the smallest reptile on earth - a chameleon subspecies that is the size of a seed.
Two of the tiny lizards were discovered by a German-Madagascan expedition team in Madagascar.
The male Brookesia nana, or nano-chameleon, has a body of just 13.5 mm.
This makes it the smallest of about 11,500 known species of reptiles, according to the Bavarian State collection of Zoology in Munich.
Its length from top to tail is 22 mm (0.86 in).
The female is far bigger at around 29 mm, the institute said, adding that other specimens were yet to be located, despite "great effort".
The new chameleon is only known from a degraded montane rainforest in northern Madagascar and might be threatened by extinction.
Oliver Hawlitschek, a scientist at the Center of Natural History in Hamburg, said that the nano-chameleon's habitat has unfortunately been subject to deforestation, but the area was placed under protection recently, so the species will survive.

Feb 05, 2021

Kaliveli Wetlands Converting into A Bird Sanctuary

The Villupuram district administration in Tamil Nadu has issued the first declaration under the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. The declaration was issued in a bid to declare Kaliveli wetlands as a bird sanctuary.
This decision is highly appreciated by the Forest Department officials and conservationists since it will boost their efforts to protect the wetland which is home for diverse flora and fauna.
The first declaration was issued under the Section 18 of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
The Kaliveli Wetlands is the second-largest brackish water lake in South India. The first largest is the Pulicat lake.
The wetland is ecologically important.
It is located near to the Marakkanam on the East Coast Road of the Kaliveli Lake.
The wetland is spread over an area of 670 sq.km.
The Kaliveli Lake is connected to the Bay of Bengal through the Uppukalli Creek and the Edayanthittu sanctuary.

Human-made Warming is Melting Peru Glacier

The melting of a glacier in the Peruvian Andes, which is raising the risk of flooding for about 120,000 nearby residents, is being caused by man-made global warming, providing new evidence for an ongoing climate lawsuit.
Peruvian farmer Saul Luciano Lliuya lives in the town of Huaraz below the Palcaraju glacier that is pushing the waters of Lake Palcacocha dangerously high. He sued German energy utility RWE in 2015 over its role in fuelling global warming.
Lliuya has argued that greenhouse gas emissions from RWE's coal-fired power plants are partly to blame for melting the glacier, producing water that threatens to flood his home.

Feb 04, 2021

Parts of Britain are Already Hitting 2030 Carbon Targets

As per reports, regions of the U.K. powered by a combination of nuclear and wind are already hitting 2030 climate targets.
Britain has pledged the deepest cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in the Group of 20 nations to put the U.K. at the vanguard of the fight against climate change. The prime minister's goal to slash pollution by 68% in the four decades through 2030 could put Britain on track to deliver net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.
According to the findings from Nuclear Industry Association, Southern Scotland, and Northeast and Northwest England had the cleanest power mix last year.

Feb 03, 2021

Indian Researchers Discover New Gecko Species In Arunachal Pradesh

A team of researchers from five institutes across India have discovered a new gecko species in Arunachal Pradesh. Their discovery was published in the international peer-reviewed journal Evolutionary Systematics.
The new species, which belongs to the genus Cyrtodactylus commonly known as bent-toed geckos, was discovered by Zeeshan Mirza of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru, Harshal Bhosale and Mandar Sawant of the Bombay Natural History Society in Mumbai, Faizan Ansari of the Madras Crocodile Bank in Chennai, Gaurang Gowande of Ferguson College in Pune, Pushkar Phansalkar from Pune, and Harshil Patel of the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University in Surat.
The researchers have named the species Cyrtodactylus arunachalensis after the state in which it was discovered.

Feb 01, 2021

Girl Discovers 220 Million Year Old Dinosaur Footprint

A four-year-old girl has made a big discovery.
Walking along a beach in Wales with her father, she spotted an extremely well-preserved dinosaur footprint that has excited palaeontologists worldwide.
Lily Wilder made the discovery near Bendricks Bay in south Wales, U.K., finding an imprint thought to have been left 220 million years ago.
Although it is impossible to identify exactly which type of dinosaur left the 10-centimetre (3.9-inch) footprint, some facts are discernable.
It's likely the footprint was made by a dinosaur that stood about 75 centimetres (29.5 inches) tall and 2.5 meters (about 8 feet) long.

Uttarakhand Sets up First Arboretum for Shivalik Range with 210 Species of Trees

A first of its kind arboretum conserving over 210 species of trees found in the Shivalik range of the Himalayas was inaugurated in Uttarakhand's Nainital district.
Sanjiv Chaturvedi, chief conservator of forests (CCF) and in-charge of forest research of state forest department said that Shivalik range or Outer Himalayas spreads across states and union territories like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and seven states in the country's northeast.
The arboretum was inaugurated by Ajay Singh Rawat, a noted environmentalist from Uttarakhand.
The Shivalik Arboretum has over 210 tree and shrub species, making it one of the biggest arboretum in the state, officials said. Some trees preserved include, Kafal (Myrica esculenta), Buransh, (Rhododendron arboretum), Tejpat (Cinnamomum tamala) and Sanjeevani (Sellaginella bryopteris).

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