There is a distinct population of blue whales, Balaenoptera musculus, in the northern Indian Ocean. The taxonomic status of these animals has long been uncertain, with debate over whether this population represents a distinct subspecies, and if so which name should apply. They have most frequently been assigned to B. musculus brevicauda, but are currently considered to be B. m. indica. The move...

The peninsula effect predicts that the number of species should decline from the base of a peninsula to the tip. However, evidence for the peninsula effect is ambiguous, as different analytical methods, study taxa, and variations in local habitat or regional climatic conditions influence conclusions on its presence. We address this uncertainty by using two analytical methods to investigate the ...

India is one of the oldest civilizations in the world with a culture marked by a high degree of syncretism and cultural pluralism. The nation is a federal republic consisting of 28 states and seven Union Territories. The Indian peninsula has an area of 3.28 million sq kms (about 1/3 the land mass of the US), and its coastline stretches about 5,700 kms on the mainland and about 7,500 kms includi...

Canon Solovyev is a small genus belonging to the Parasa-complex of Limacacodidae. It is distributed from northern India to the Malayan Peninsula. The genus previously included two species: C. punica (Herrich-Schäffer) from the Indian region and C. eos Solovyev from Nepal. Canon punica is recorded from China (Yunnan), northern Thailand and Malaysia, but specimens from northern Thailand and proba...

This study investigated the spatial and temporal modulation of aerosol species by monsoon intraseasonal oscillation (MISO) using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) reanalysis Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite observations from 2003 to 2019. The climatological distribution showed long-range transport sea-salt dust Indian landmass Arabian Sea desert regi...

Bowmouth guitarfish is one of the rare and endangered aquatic species [1] in class Chondrichthyes, subclass Elasmobranchii, which includes sharks and rays (Batoidea), order Rajiformes, and the only species in the family Rhinidae and genus Rhina [2]. Its habitats include the Indian and the Pacific oceans and have been reported from Australia to the south of the Arabian Peninsula. An adult guitar...

Rainfall in Kerala State, the southern part of Indian Peninsula in particular is caused by the two monsoons and the two cyclones every year. In general, climate and rainfall are highly nonlinear phenomena in nature giving rise to what is known as the ‘butterfly effect’. We however attempt to train an ABF neural network on the time series rainfall data and show for the first time that in spite o...