Sun finally overcame its struggle with clouds and presented a pleasant Mizoram winter this weekend. Craving for more we took off on our bike to soak in its pleasure ...
Before we took off on the bike I reached office to open windows and saw a stunning moth. It appeared a little lost, allowed us to take macro images from pretty close and later on scraped through the window. It was the Atlas Moth (Attacus atlas). Wikipedia says its ‘considered to be the largest moth in the world”.
Saw this Oriental Garden Lizard or Changeable Lizard (Calotes versicolor) about 10 kms ahead of Saiha on the road to Blue Mountain National Park. This was at a time when the sun was tiring out for the day, sending out its robust last rays. We were sitting on a stone placed on the valley side of the road and could hear them jump on the not so dry leaves (and other vegetation) about 4 – 6 feet from the hill on the other side about 15 feet further from us; beautifully camouflaged!
Wikipedia says of this ‘Unlike other lizards, they do not drop their tails, and their tails can be very long, stiff and pointy. Like other reptiles, they shed their skins and like chameleons can move each of their eyes in different directions.
Giant wood spider (Genus : Nephila)
It was almost at the centre of its web when we noticed it; adjacent to an unused building at Tlangkawn. The web was big enough to rival the size of our office table had it been circular and was dotted with prey in no small numbers. As we attempted to take its pics and count the prey we realized it was slowly descending and not wanting to further disturb it on a Sunday afternoon moved ahead.
Acknowledgements are due to Firoz Ahmed, Dharmendra Khandal, Ashwin Baindur and of course Kishen Das.
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