Many species lie undiscovered

Chennai: During 2012, 133 new spe­cies and 109 new records of living creatures have been reported from India.

Acc­ording to the Kolkata-based National Zoological Survey of India, it is estimated that about twice the present number of species still rem­ain to be discovered in India alone.

All the 133 species of animals discovered were new to science from our country and still a lot remained to be explored from marine and other protected forest areas, said Dr K Venka­tr­aman, director, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.

“Our last year’s discovery includes 66 species of ins­ects, two species of amphibians and one bird species from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

And for the year 2013, the new animal discovery is getting documented and will be released in June 2014 as a prelude to World Envi­ron­ment Day (June 5).

The significant one is the possible occurrence of a yet to be described new Rallina crane from the Great Nic­obar Island.

Though our researchers had taken a picture of this elusive bird during one of their surveys in the Island, efforts are on to gather more information on this bird, including netting one for a proper desc­ri­ption,” he said.

Networking of the scientific community and taxonomists is the need of the hour and without research of life science, conservation is not feasible.

There is a dearth of biologists and taxonomists and this has to be addressed soon he said. 

Venkatraman said that barring the tiger and other big mammals, they did not have documentation on several creatures.

“Very little was done to study indi­geno­us marine mammals and wild creatures, and the stu­dy of flora and fa­una will pave the way for a balanced eco­system,” he added.

“Biologists are not enco­uraged in our country and there should be more rese­arch work on life sciences. Students avoid botany and zoology as they fail to provi­de a good career,” A. Ku­m­araguru of the Biod­ive­rsity Conservation Fou­ndation regretted.