The Latest Breaking News from Ghats

India's Purple Frog: 46 Weeks Underground, 130 Million Years of Survival, and Two Weeks to Breed

A Species Science Almost MissedThe Purple Frog, Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, was formally described by scientists S.D. Biju and Franky Bossuyt in a 2003 paper published in Nature, making it one of the most significant amphibian discoveries of the century. It had been living in the forests of the Western Ghats for…

Times Life · Sep 23

How the Malabar Pit Viper Uses Infrared Sensing to Hunt in Total Darkness in the Ghats

A Face Built for the DarkBetween the Malabar pit viper's nostril and its eye, on each side of its head, sits a small depression called the loreal pit. It looks unremarkable. It is anything but. This pit is a heat-detection organ, lined with a membrane packed with temperature-sensitive receptors that…

Times Life · Sep 21

Kollur, Sringeri, and Horanadu: The Malnad Temple Route That Karnataka's Beaches Overshadow

The road you keep not takingYou have probably driven the coastal highway at least once. Murudeshwar, Gokarna, Murdeshwar, the beach towns string together so easily that the inland turn-off barely registers. There is a signboard somewhere past Bhatkal that points toward Kollur. Most cars do not slow down for it.…

Times Life · Sep 19

India's Most Secretive Feline: What Science Has Actually Documented About the Clouded Leopard

A Cat That Rewrote the Anatomy of ClimbingThe clouded leopard's canine teeth are the longest, relative to skull size, of any living cat on earth. That single biological fact has been confirmed, measured, and published, and it is one of the few things about this animal that science can state…

Times Life · Aug 10

Malabar Whistling Thrush: Why the Western Ghats' Most Melodic Bird Is Called the Whistling Schoolboy

The Bird That Sounds Like It Learned From a Music TeacherThe first time most people hear a Malabar Whistling Thrush, they look around for a person. The song is that convincing, a clear, unhurried series of melodic phrases that rise and fall like someone whistling a half-remembered tune on the…

Times Life · Aug 4

Beyond Coorg: A Slow Travel Through Karnataka's Coffee Hills and Plantation Estates

The Road That Doesn't Rush YouThe first thing Chikmagalur takes from you is your itinerary. You arrive with a list, Mullayanagiri, Baba Budangiri, the coffee museum, and within a day the list is somewhere in your bag, unread. The hills do this. They are not dramatic in the way that…

Times Life · Jul 17

Pushkar Mela First-Timer's Guide: Everything You Need to Know Before the Fair in Rajasthan

What the Mela Actually Is (Versus What Instagram Tells You)The Pushkar Mela is two fairs running simultaneously in the same patch of sand, and most tourists only find one of them. The outer fair, the one with the ferris wheel, the folk dancers hired for tour groups, and the stalls…

Times Life · Jul 10

The Konkan Railway Is the Most Scenic Train Journey in Coastal India, and It Still Feels Magical

The window seat earns its reputation hereYou board at Madgaon or Ratnagiri or somewhere smaller, and within twenty minutes the train has already made its case. A river appears below a bridge so high you feel the drop in your chest. Then a tunnel swallows everything, the light, the sound,…

Times Life · Jul 4

The ‘missing’ insect that is raising alarm bells about one of world’s best biodiversity hotspots

Research points to alarming species decline, habitat degradation, and deeper ecological stress in India’s Western Ghats

The Independent UK · May 4

Godavari river ghats under police watch to avoid any untoward incident during Karthika Masam

East Godavari SP P. Jagadeesh has said that police personnel have been deployed to guard the Ghats along the river Godavari on both fronts of Rajamahendravaram and Kovvuru to prevent any untoward incident during Karthika Masam in the East Godavari district. 

The Hindu · Nov 15, 2023