While walking through a forest, especially one as lush as Mizoram’s Dampa Tiger Reserve, it is easy to look up and lose yourself in its upper layers. It seems like that’s where all the action is. The heroes of these habitats seem to be these towering trees, the results of time in a theatre featuring seeds, soil, and a succession of seasons, dramatised by the time-lapse sequences in many natural history films. But like many other wet evergreen forests in this region, Dampa is like a bustling condominium, humming with life from the ground up — from the forest floor, through the undergrowth, the middle understorey, the upper canopy, all the way to the highest emergent layers.
A wealth of natural history action often goes unnoticed in the undergrowth and the forest floor, where small creatures and ecosystem engineers are busy at work. It is often difficult to imagine what beneficial relations between our species and others might be, but the phrase “seeing small” comes to mind. In a healthy ecosystem, complex relationships play out in the undergrowth and the quieter, often overlooked shadows of the forest floor. On my walks through Dampa, I chanced upon little creatures doing big work, vignettes of the intricate associations that keep these ecosystems running.
Our team consisting of wildlife photographer Dhritiman Mukherjee, naturalist Omkar Dharwadkar, filmmaker Tukai Biswas and myself, were in Dampa to document biodiversity in these forests. Located close to the Bangladesh border in the Lushnai hill ranges of Mizoram. The natural vegetation of the Dampa Tiger Reserve ranges from tropical evergreen to semi-evergreen forest. Over the years, as a result of human-induced factors, the vegetation has changed to include larger tracts of bamboo and scrub forest. Research suggests that the diverse vegetation of regenerating bamboo forests that occur as a consequence of jhum, the shifting agriculture practised by communities in the region, is better for wildlife than the expanding monoculture plantations of teak and oil palm in the buffer areas.
Possibly one of the last remaining low-to-mid-elevation natural forests in western Mizoram, Dampa is famously home to primates, mammals, and avian life. Camera trapping undertaken by the forest department has revealed at least 30 species of mammals, including clouded leopard, marbled cat, Asiatic golden cat, leopard cat, and sun bear. Another 2021 study by researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India and Mizoram University recorded 33 species of reptiles — about 27 per cent of the total reptilian diversity recorded from Mizoram. According to experts, the reserve teems with biodiversity. Forests like Dampa bring to my mind jungle condominiums where creatures live in different storeys of the forest, interacting with other communities inhabiting other levels. Much of nature’s drama and a diversity of movement can be spotted on tree barks, and fallen fruits and leaves on the moist forest floor. Fascinating creatures can be seen on the undersides of leaves, and after a heavy shower, in transient rain pools.
A short hop from the ants’ location, we spot one of these herbivores at night. (1) On the bark of a tree sat an adult dark-horned lanternfly (Pyrops spinolae). Members of the diverse planthopper family, lanternflies feed on plant sap and sometimes “hop”, much like grasshoppers. Planthopper excreta contains a sweet honeydew that some ants feed on. Also referred to as lantern bugs, these insects derive their name from the long structure on top of their heads, once believed to produce light at night. However, these incredible adaptations are not luminous. They are used to puncture the thick walls of plant cells, and with a small mouthpiece in the structure, they suck out the sap. In flight, adults look like butterflies.
In fact, planthoppers are fascinating in all stages of their life. Emerging directly from eggs, nymphs turn into adults in what is known as incomplete metamorphosis. A few minutes from the Pathlawi Lunglen Tlang gate, we encounter a congregation of planthopper nymphs (2), otherworldly white creatures with powdery tentacles sprouting from their bodies. These protrusions deter predators and help in camouflage.
Unlike other forests, I notice that Dampa’s damp forest floor does not crackle and crunch underfoot. Moisture shapes much of the landscape, especially in the evergreen forest patches. Moss-edged branches and moist fallen leaves, in varying stages of returning to the earth, move to reveal signs of beetles, small frogs, huntsmen spiders and leeches. This underfoot world starts coming alive at dusk and is especially active during the night.
(1) Smith’s litter frogs (Leptobrachium smithi) and (2) green cascade frogs (Odorrana chloronota) hop on the jungle track, and a tarantula (3) slowly emerges from its lair. But this was just a taster. A 2021 study conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India and Mizoram University in March and September (pre- and post-monsoon) listed 33 species of lizards and snakes, some of which were new records for the habitat. In terms of reptilian diversity as well, the species richness is remarkable, at 54 species.
Near the waterfalls and along the road, mud-puddling butterflies put on a dancing colour-fest — fluffy tits, common hedge blues, spotted blue crows, and grass yellows. Nature is cinema at its finest, zoom in on one character, and myriad stories unfold.
On a more sombre note, I think of the roadkill we had spotted on our way — forest rat, common krait, spotted blue crow (above). Dampa reminds me that wildlife is everywhere, not just within the boundaries humans demarcate for them. Yet, we seem to have specific ideas of where wildlife and nature should and should not be. As I think of life in the undergrowth, I realise that “seeing small” can open up a new world. Perhaps a step towards living with the rest of nature starts with marvelling at little creatures a little more.
About the contributors
Divya Candade
Dhritiman Mukherjee
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