The Magnificent Migrant

by Janice Fernandes, TYBSc, St. Xavier's College. In my opinion, one of the most incredible phenomena exhibited by birds is migration. Just like human beings who migrate from place to place within a country or between countries, birds too exhibit different kinds of migration. The reasons for their migration to various regions of the world...

The Perfect Predator

By Tanya Vyas, TYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Skin dark as night, Embraced by the shadows she calls home, Embedded in her body the last light That you see before you return to seafoam.  The Pacific Blackdragon, alias Idiacanthus antrostomus, is a member of the barbeled dragonfishes, living up to 1000m down in the Pacific...

Great Hornbill With A Kill

A Fascinating Story of Parenting and Love by Yuvam Morvekar, FYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Photograph taken by Yuvam Morvekar, FYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. February 2023. This 3-foot-tall bird will hunt down anything that it can consume. The Great Hornbill is not just a frugivore but it also feeds on birds, reptiles and even...

They’re In Your Skin

Photograph by Arjun Harish, FYBSc, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Petromalidie sp. wasps parasitising a pupating Papilio polytes (Common Mormon).

Golden Jackal

Photograph taken by Yuvam Morvekar, FYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. Golden Jackal spotted at Thane Creek , April 2023

Ghosts of Oceans Past

By Akansha Tiwari, Conservation Filmmaker, Bangalore. Abandoned Lost Discarded Fishing Gear (ALDFG, in short) is one of the spookiest things haunting our oceans and rightfully so. It is also called ghost net or ghost gear. Photo credit - Akansha Tiwari  These fishing nets, sometimes lost or discarded, keep floating in the ocean aimlessly, consequently entangling...

Deerly Departed.

A Spooktober Special! A photograph of the skull of a Barking Deer taken by Robben Arjen, SYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai.

Coastal Biodiversity and Livelihoods

By Elijah Almeida, FYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. The degradation of coastal ecosystems is quite an unprecedented subject to bring up to a stranger. Everybody is cognisant of ‘human-provoked’ calamities, be it the decline of the corals and the rainforests or the melting of glaciers. However, little is talked about the world within the ocean....

Bear-y Blog-mas!

A Christmas Special! Illustration credits: Fay Pereira (IMPRINT Design Volunteer) Lo and behold, the winning submission for the pun-writing contest we held on 22nd December, 2022 is here! What did Santa Claus say to Rudolph about climate change in December? "It's rain, dear!"- Jess Rumao, SYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. The XZA Chronicle congratulates our...

The Anglerfish: An ‘Abyss’mal Terror

A Spooktober Special! By Neomi D'Costa, FYBSc, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. In the collective of horror tropes, we have many that pay homage to the unknown, be it the Lovecraftian cosmic horror of Cthulhu in the sunken city of R’lyeh or consistent reports of alien and cryptid sightings. For as long as humanity has existed,...