Treasures of Nature: July 2012

Every fiddler had a fine fiddle,

and a very fine fiddle had he;

Oh there's none so rare as can compare

With King Cole and his fiddlers three.

We have all heard of King Cole’s famous fiddlers three. They played fine tunes to please their master, the king. But have you ever heard of the crab that plays the fiddle?

I am talking about the ‘fiddler crab’. This species of crab is commonly found on Indian beaches. It measures about one to two inches, and can be identified by its distinctly visible ‘fiddle’.

In the males of this species, one of the claws is extremely large, much larger than the other claw, and sometimes even larger than the entire body of the crab. This claw is often brightly coloured, and is meant for attracting the female. During courtship, the males engage in a fight in which they use their large claw.

The fiddler crab feeds on algae, fungi , dead plants etc….

When this crab feeds, it picks up food from the ground and puts it into its mouth. It repeats this action several times, rapidly. It uses its small claw to feed. The larger claw remains motionless. The small claw thus moves again and again across the large claw. So the overall action looks as if the large claw is the fiddle, and the crab is playing it with the small claw!

Watching this tiny fiddler is a joy indeed!

1. http://wildphotos.net/facts/Fiddlercrab.asp?page=/facts/Fiddlercrab.asp
2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPAA9y7CRqo
3. http://www.dnr.sc.gov/cwcs/pdf/FiddlerCrab.pdf

In mid march, I had been to Sewri for a flamingo watch. It was a thrill to see the beautiful avians take flight. But not only that, I also got an opportunity to see a great variety of other water birds.

I felt sad that such a biologically diverse ecosystem of the Sewri mudflats is contaminated with oil spills. There are also a few wrecked boats lying near the jetty.

On one such old boat, I got an opportunity of seeing a Kingfisher take shelter. And how beautiful it was! Turquoise blue plumage, with red straps on the wings. Made me wonder where the bright blue colour comes from.

Usually, the colour of a living organism comes from a pigment. Pigments are chemicals produced by cells that not only perform some important function in the organism, but also impart a distinct colour to the organism. For example, the green pigment chlorophyll not only imparts a green colour to the plant, but its main function is to trap light energy so that the plant can make food by photosynthesis.

The fruits and flowers of plants are colourful due to pigments like anthocyanin, betalain etc..These pigments make the fruits and flowers attractive to insects, animals and birds, thus helping in pollination or seed dispersal.

The flamingoes are basically grayish white in colour. But the more they feed on shrimps, the more pink their plumage becomes. That is because, the shrimps contain the pigments alpha and beta carotenoids which are blue or green in colour. When the flamingo digests this pigment, it turns pink in colour.

But when it comes to the kingfisher, it is an entirely new story! The colours of the Kingfisher are not due to any blue pigment, but due to the diffraction of light by the feathers. The true colour of the Kingfisher’s plumage is a dull brown! But the beautiful blue is due to the structure of their feathers, and the way their feathers reflect light.

And how can we miss out on the magnificent peacock! The peacock’s colours too are due to reflection of light – but in a different way. If you have had an opportunity to see one these beauties, you may have noticed that as you look at the peacock from different angles, you see different colours! These colours are called iridescent colours. This is seen because different waves of light interfere with each other, either enhancing each other or nullifying each other, and as a result giving rise to changing colours.

Treasures of Nature

Sunday, 15 July 2012

Fine Fiddle

Sunday, 1 July 2012

What meets the eye