The Black Tiger

       

The Black Tiger

          If white tiger are rare than black tigers are rarer.  they have a hair coat  which has more black strips than normal white tigers.  The black colour in a tiger is a result of  "false melanism" - a process that in the case of black tigers, increases the amount of black pigmentation in the skin.  Black tigers are not a recent phenomena because there are recorded instances of sighting of black tigers in our country from time to time.  The black tiger like the white tiger is an aberration of The Royal Bengal Tiger.  The normal coloured coat of the tiger has been designed by nature to help it hunt by camouflaging it in its surrounding.
           The increased sighting of black tigers give an ominous message that inbreeding depression is putting the very existence of the already highly endangered Royal Bengal Tiger at stake.  Recently, a black tiger cub was born in Nandankanan Biological Park, Odisha.  Nandankanan Biological Park also holds the Guinness book of world record for having the largest captive population of white tigers.

Drosera in danger

        the population of sundew or Drosera has been decreasing day by day. There is a need to conserve this carnivorous plant that has several medicinal properties.  the sundew plant is well known for its insect trapping mechanism.  The trapped animal supplement the inadequate mineral nutrition of the soil in which it grows. Mainly distributed in tropical old world countries, it prefers to grow in seasonally moist or more rarely constantly wat open habitats with nutrient poor acidic soils  and high level of sun lights.  Thrives on nutrient deficiency acidic soil, usually in marshy areas with superficial water flow and inhabited warm climate. The flowers are held for above the leaf traps by a scape or long leaf less stalk. The physical isolation of the flowers from the trapper leaves is quite helpful for attracting pollinators to the flowers and to divert the direction of non pollinator insects to the trap as preys. 

            Some species of Drosera are at the verge of extinction and other are facing acute survival problems. One of the major cause of their depletion is habitat destruction due to ever increasing pressure of human intervention like urban and rural development strategies for agriculture and construction purposes.  Moreover nutrient-rich pollutants from agricultural and household sources move into the habitats of these species due to which the soil and water chemistry get altered.  Drosera is in peril of being wiped out completely unless corrective measures are taken to conserve it

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