Question: Center for Ecological Sciences (CES) is part of which of the following institution?
a) Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
b) CSIR
c) Indian Institute of Science
d) IIT Madras
Answer: (c)
Related Facts:
- Recently researchers from Center for ecological sciences have discovered five new species of Vine snakes.
- It should be known that CES is department operating under the Indian institute of Science, Bangaluru.
- Researchers from the CES discovered these species based on extensive sampling across peninsular India.
- Researcher’s team carried out field visits across India to collect morphological data, tissue samples and specimens.
- The purpose of such collection was to understand the patterns of distribution and diversification of vine snakes.
- They were surprised to discover that the common green vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) in India was a complex of several species.
- They also found four other distinct small-bodied and short-nosed species.
- These other four species are—
i. Northern Western Ghats vine snake (Ahaetulla Borealis).
ii. Farnsworth’s vine snake (Ahaetulla farnsworthi),
iii. Malabar vine snake (Ahaetulla malabarica) and-
iv. Wall’s vine snake (Ahaetulla isabellina) in the Western Ghats rainforests alone.
- These species were superficially similar in their morphology but separated by geographic (or ecological) barriers.
- Another morphologically distinct and much larger species, the long-nosed vine snake (Ahaetulla oxyrhyncha), was distributed in the lowlands and drier parts of peninsular India.
- One of the researcher informed that all the vine snakes were assigned names related to the locality or based on a morphological character.
- He said that, but we named the species Ahaetulla farnsworthi after my favorite mad scientist who inspired me to become one, Dr. Hubert Farnsworth from [the cartoon] Futurama.
- In fact, the snake also looks a lot like him, says Achyuthan Srikanthan, a researcher at CES who was part of the team.
By – Rajesh Triapthi
Links:-
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-discovery-species-vine-snakes-india.html
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/iisc-researchers-discover-five-new-species-of-vine-snakes-in-india-7050656/