SURROGATE SPIDERS

Mud dauber wasps are often seen at the edge of mud puddles collecting mud to construct their tublar nests. Organpipe mud dauber nests are partitioned off with mud and each cell is provisioned with several paralyzed spiders and implanted with an egg. After eggs hatch, larvae feed on captured spiders with larvae maturing in about three weeks. Larvae spin a cocoon and overwinter. Males may guard the nest while the female forages. Mud cells may be constructed in deserted nests of the black and yellow mud dauber.
Female black and yellow mud daubers paralyze spiders, pack them into the cell with their head until full, lay one egg and seal the cell. Larvae are pale yellowish about 3/4 inch long when fully grown. Pupation occurs within a cocoon inside the cell. There are two broods with hibernation in the cocoon. Female blue mud daubers take over a mud nest, open a cell by moistening the clay with water and emptying it of spiders and the other wasp egg. They then deposit their own paralyzed spiders, lay their own egg and seal over the cell. Hosts are mostly black widow spiders.
Solitary wasps (mud daubers) are very different than the social wasps (hornets, yellowjackets and paper wasps). There is no worker caste and the queens must care for their own young. Mud dauber wasp queens use their sting to paralyze their prey (spiders) rather than to defend their nests. These wasps are non-aggressive and rarely sting unless touched or caught in clothing. (source:Ohio University fact sheet)

INSPIRED BY THE NATURE

The hook-loop fastener was invented in 1941 by Georges de Mestral, a Swiss engineer. The idea came to him after he took a close look at the Burdock seeds(like the kuroh of sikkim) which kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur on their daily walk in the Alps, during the summer. He examined their condition and saw the possibility of binding two materials reversibly in a simple fashion. He developed the hook and loop fastener and submitted his idea for patent in 1951. De Mestral named his invention "VELCRO" after the French words velours, meaning 'velvet', and crochet, or 'hook'. The uses and applications of the product are numerous. Today, the VELCRO mark is the subject of more than 300 trademark registrations in over 160 countries.Silent velcro is a new innovation of the american army research labs .The old velcro makes noise which is undesirable in a combat/ secret missions.

AMBER GRIS

People from the coasts of New Zealand to Andaman know about it. It’s a fortune, if they stumble upon it. A solid, some times greasy material which floats in the sea and reaches the shore. It’s a whale vomit, only from a Sperm Whale.This is used in the perfume industry as fixative.Some consider it as tonic or aphrodisiac.A man got four Kilos (It was Rs.ONE Lakh per Kilo in the 80s)of this in my village,but he was a drunkard..he got cheated by a trader,he got only 20000Rs.

Later he bought a bicycle,four buffalos and built a small house,ie. another story! I saw a SpermWhale drifted to the shore one fine day, but it was dead .The Wild life Department Personnels came to give a decent burial to the whale,it was an himalayan task! with two Elephants deputed for this mammoth work,taking the whale of a time.unable to lift.The dead mammal was stuck to the sands.This indecent burial with sand dumped over it started giving out the bad smell around for a long while..

BALL LIGHTNING

Lightning & thunders threaten human beings, our instinct towards
natural threats are ingrained in our psyche, since our ancestors lived
in caves and jungles. This one is more sophisticated form of
lightning. Normally it is believed that lightning doesn’t enter
closed rooms, but ball lightning is of different genre. It can enter a
closed room, can pass through a glass pane or wall. Some people from
North Sikkim had an encounter with this kind of lightning, I heard that
an Infant had severe burns due to this, when the ball hovered over
the sleeping child and disappeared suddenly. Scientists world over
unable to come to a conclusion about the origin of this ball
Lightning. Some say it is caused due to nuclear
Fussion/fission, because of the charged atmosphere during a cloudy
rainy day.-PONDER WONDER!

YOU CANT BE SCEPTICAL

Can you predict the name of your wife long before the marriage, how many children will you have? What you will you do for a living? etc.Some believe, answers to these questions can be found through Naadi Astrology .It is popular in Tamil nadu as Brighu Samhita of the North India. Ancient Rishis(Sage Agasthya) wrote treatise on every human occupants of this blue planet. Not only this but also the date/age at which a person will consult these predictions. When I went to Annamalai University I heard about it and want to give it a try (even though I don’t believe in Astrology or any such things).Vaitheeswaran Koil(the temple village)is nearby and I took a bus to reach there.They ask ten questions about you,turning the Thaad Patris one by one,to find out which one matches with your details, may be they are using some sort of deductive method. Later the person (trained in guru sishya mode)went to get the Right Thaad Patri .My quest was to know how they predict.The result Ajooba –Achamba !!!!! I don’t recommend this, but if it is time, you will be pulled towards these kind of Astrology,as they say.

Now let us look at the other side of it..These predictions may act like auto suggestions in our mind ,the more we have faith the more it happens as they said.Its OK about the future,but how he found that I was born in an island! AJOOBA.

MONETARY CONFINEMENT

I met a person on board the ship MV Nicobar to Andamans.While talking to him he casually mentioned that he is going to Andamans in search of a job,and he is from West Bengal.Later he told me that he earliar went to Hong Kong for the same,but didn"t got any suitable job there.He served a sentence for six months in a HongKong jail for a fight with a local Citizen.He continued saying that it was an intentional fight , he recieved later about 18000 Rs. equivelent of HongKong money for every month he served in the jail,which is a good money! I wondered the mans idea of earning money.I never ever heard such an idea for earning money,but he told me that a good number of Bangaladeshis are doing this in HongKong.They try to shoplift or beatup some one on the street to get punished. Its ACHAMBA!

JAPANESE RUPEE-not Yen

Japan occupied some parts of Burma(British colony)and Andaman Islands during the Second World War,they minted currency notes for local use in Burma and in the Islands,.ie.in the denominations of 1, 5 and 10.Here you see the ONE RUPEE, yes Rupee ! note.Japanese Government ..One Rupee Note ..ajooba or achamba..Incredible India !

OLD IS GOLD-nappi & kinema.fermented food

Shrimps(boosi jinga) are delicacy in the south Asia.It is eaten cooked,dried and even fermented.Yes, fermented .Shrimps are mashed into a paste and buried for several months. The fermented shrimp are then dug up, in some countries ,fried and hard-pressed into cakes. While all shrimp paste has a notoriously pungent aroma,(like the KINEMA) that of higher grades is generally milder. Shrimp paste is used differently in different Asian cultures and can vary in smell, texture and saltiness. In Andaman the Karen people of Burma origin ,make this and we call it NAPPI.People use it as a Thadka(seasoning) for anything from vegetable to dhal.Fermented food is part of our culture wherever we live.How people learned it? AJOOBA

BLOOD THIRSTY FEMALES

Its AJOOBA(wonder)and ACHAMBA(wonder in nepali) to know that only the female Mosquitoes suck blood from our body and spread diseases.It reminds me of a lesson which we studied in class XI"Female are deadlier than Male".They need the proteins found in animal and human blood to reproduce. The males, on the other hand, get their nourishment from plant nectars.You may ask why Iam writing only about PARASITES.wait the next one will be on food.

TONGUE TWISTER:I Live in the Sea inside her mouth

I bought a kilo of Tharini-fish from the fisherman,while cutting (washing)the fishes I saw something strange..a crawling insect like thing coming out of the mouth of a fish,I felt like throwing all the fish,but as I use to remove the whole head(normally we dont eat the head of small fishes)i continued my work ,unable to understand this..After a month I read some where about the exact thing ,may be in the"Believe it or Not".Now the mystery revealed and it was ACHAMBA THE AJOOBA.This alien as a baby enters into the fish,stays in its mouth,grows,eats out the tongue of the host and replaces the tongue and lives happily forever sucking the blood of the host,working as the tongue.The fish bechara host ka maara. I didn't missed the chance to click a snap next time when I encountered this parasite.