Sikkim Ornithological Society starts awareness tour to Sikkim’s schools

Visits Kabi GSSS and Tingda PS

Sikkim Biodiversity news

02.09.15: Sikkim Ornithological Society starts an awareness of Sikkim’s nature by visiting schools of Sikkim. The organization is set to visit at-least 500 schools from primary level to Senior Secondary schools in the program. The team of SOS today made its first visit to Kabi School and Tingda PS.

 Nosang Muringla Limboo, President of SOS with his presentation of Butterfly chart

With Headmaster and Teacher of Tingda 

The Team met the students and teachers of the school and briefed about the volunteer work to present a chart of Birds and Butterflies of Sikkim (complied by the SOS team a decade's work) for each school throughout the state. Motive behind the program was to interact with the young minds of Sikkim and to make them aware of their own natural wealth and help conserve it.

Appias

Appias forms a part of a genus of family Pieridae (whites) found in Southern Asia and Australia. They are also commonly called puffins or albatrosses.

“Off the recorded Appias species, 10 species occurs in Indian Subcontinent i.e. albina, libythea, paulina, lyncida, nero, indra, melania, lalage, wardii and olferna. Apart from A.nero i.e bright orange coloured, all the Appias species found in India are white on the upper wing surface, with the apex and outer margins of the forewings marked to a greater or lesser extent with black, according to species. Females of the "white" species have a dull brownish-white ground colour, heavily suffused with dark brown around the margins and in the fw discal cell. The undersides vary considerably - e.g. albina is pure white; indra is greyish, heavily mottled with brown; and the underside hindwings of lyncida are bright yellow with broad chocolate margins”. (learnaboutbutterflies.com)

Fulvous forest skimmer (Neurothemis fulvia) - Sikkim Dragonfly

China rose (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)- Sikkim Flora

Scientific classification

Kingdom:       Plantae

Family:           Malvaceae

Genus:            Hibiscus

Species:           H. rosa-sinensis

Binomial name: Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L.

Other Names:  China rose

Special feature:  It is the most widely used flower in laboratory experiments by scholars and universities to study floral characteristics.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis was named by Carolus Linnaeus. The Latin term rosa-sinensis literally means "rose of China", though it is not closely related to the true roses.

Ixias pyrene (Yellow Orange Tip) - Sikkim Butterfly

Scientific classification

Kingdom:             Animalia

Phylum:               Arthropoda

Class:                    Insecta

Order:                  Lepidoptera

Family:                 Pieridae

Genus:                  Ixias

Species:                 I. pyrene

Binomial name:    Ixias pyrene (Linnaeus 1764)

Other Names:  Yellow Orange Tip

Special feature:  This species is most common among the genus Ixias. They are ten species in numbers. 

Pseudocoladenia dan, (Fulvous Pied Flat) - Sikkim Butterfly

Pseudocoladenia dan, (Fulvous Pied Flat)

Place : Rongli, East Sikkim

Date: March 8, 2015

Pic: Shital Pradhan

Papilio memnon (Great Mormon) - Sikkim Butterfly

Place: Rongli, East Sikkim (March 8, 2015) Pic: Shital Pradhan

Kingdom:            Animalia

Phylum:               Arthropoda

Class:                   Insecta

Order:                 Lepidoptera

Family:               Papilionidae

Genus:                 Papilio

Species:                P. memnon

Binomial name:  Papilio memnon Linnaeus (1758)

MORE ON GENUS PAPILIO

Phoenicurus hodgsoni (Hodgson's redstart) - Sikkim Bird

Phoenicurus hodgsoni (Hodgson's redstart)

Place : Rongli, East Sikkim

Date: March 8, 2015

Pic: Shital Pradhan

Centropus sinensis (Greater Coucal) - Sikkim Bird

Centropus sinensis (Greater Coucal)

Place : Rongli, East Sikkim

Date: March 8, 2015

Pic: Shital Pradhan

Pericrocotus speciosus (Scarlet minivet - male) - Sikkim Bird

Pericrocotus speciosus (Scarlet minivet - male)

Place : Shantinagar, Singtam, East Sikkim

Date: January 23, 2015

Pic: Shital Pradhan

Scientific classification

Kingdom:       Animalia

Phylum:          Chordata

Class:             Aves

Order:            Passeriformes

Family:           Campephagidae

Genus:            Pericrocotus

Species:           P. speciosus

Binomial name: Pericrocotus speciosus Latham, 1790

Other Names:  Scarlet Minivet

Special feature:  While the male of most subspecies are scarlet to orange with black upper parts, the females are usually yellow with greyish olive upper parts.

There are 13 species found in this genus:

    Rosy minivet,                                                          Pericrocotus roseus

    Swinhoe's minivet or brown-rumped minivet,        Pericrocotus cantonensis

    Ashy minivet,                                                          Pericrocotus divaricatus

    Ryukyu minivet,                                                     Pericrocotus tegimae

    Small minivet,                                                         Pericrocotus cinnamomeus

    Fiery minivet,                                                          Pericrocotus igneus

    Little minivet,                                                         Pericrocotus lansbergei

    White-bellied minivet,                                            Pericrocotus erythropygius

    Grey-chinned minivet,                                            Pericrocotus solaris

    Long-tailed minivet,                                               Pericrocotus ethologus

    Short-billed minivet,                                               Pericrocotus brevirostris

    Sunda minivet,                                                        Pericrocotus miniatus

    Scarlet minivet,                                                       Pericrocotus speciosus

    Orange minivet,                                                      Pericrocotus flammeus