Animals of IITM - there's a book now

All pictures from Bhanu, who led a nature walk in IIT, for MNS last month
The article below was seen in The Hindu.

P. Oppili

CHENNAI: As part of its golden jubilee celebrations, the IIT–Madras has brought out a second publication, animals of IIT–Madras.

The book was released recently by Kapil Sibal, Union Minister for Science and Technology. It presents the most common animals on the IIT-M campus, which incidentally is one of the last refuges for native biodiversity in South Chennai. The 150 species described in the book cover the following groups: mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and select number of invertebrates. The description includes details such as the common and scientific names of the organisms, short notes on morphological features, pointers that facilitate easy identification and their distribution and status within the campus.

Conservation planning programme
The book was part of an overall conservation planning programme undertaken by IIT-M in the recent years.

In view of the fact that conservation within the campus had to be a necessary factor in the continuous presence of a significant number of human beings, the book would contribute to the formation of a well-informed pool of stakeholders, said a spokesperson of Care Earth, a biodiversity research organisation.

A team of dedicated ecologists and biologists assessed the extent and quality of the critical habitats that supported the biodiversity on the campus and the pocket guide was prepared by Care Earth.

Little Grebe, Indian pond heron, Asian Openbill stork, cattle egret, grey francolin, black kite, shikra, white-breasted waterhen, purple moorhen, redwattled lapwing, chestnut-winged cuckoo are some of the birds one could spot at the campus. Reptiles such as Indian cobra, chequered keelback, bronzeback tree snake, common vine snake, star tortoise and animals such as Golden jackal, common palm civet, could be sighted at the campus.

A great place to go birding, I had written about it in Tracking the Indian Pitta at IIT

Here are some pictures from the IIT Walk.

Bhanu, by the way is rather multi-faceted. Read about her puppetry initiatives here.

Now to find myself a copy of the book