During my school time, I used to browse Facebook on my pc a lot. On one rainy afternoon, a post caught my attention, it was unlike anything I had ever seen…
“Wow!” I gasped. I opened the link, and despite the dreary structure of the research paper, I read it to its entire length not missing a single word. It blew my mind - No, not their findings. The lizard. A creature so elegant, and beautiful lived hardly 20km from the chair I was seated on, and yet it is so greatly unknown to science.
What does it eat? Not known
How does it find mates? Not known
The skink’s closest relative is found near the India-Pakistan border, and this is the only other species of Eurylepis in the world, found on the Katraj hills of Pune and one other location in Nashik. So historically speaking, how did it manage to reach here 1000+ km from its congener? I have no idea!
These questions sprouted in my mind like mustard seeds did in cotton in my upper KG class activity. These questions intrigued me, I wrote down all the essential location data from the article on a piece of paper and pinned it on my soft board. “One day, I am going to track down this skink” I determined, for I wanted to know more & more about this mysterious creature hidden from humanity, despite being so close to a metropolis.
Not long after I joined college in 2018, I, along with a few pals planned a trip to Katraj Ghat, a landscape that held such great significance in my mind. It wasn’t a very fruitful trip, I did not find the skink I was looking for, and I knew it was not going to be easy. In the following months, I managed to find every excuse I could to get lost in that landscape. Many a time, I went there all alone, at nights, during the day - the time didn’t really matter. I decided to document and record my every visit. So every time I come back, I grabbed my laptop, traced the path I hiked in google maps, and marked the date.
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| All paths are individually color-coded. In total - 48.14km |
I contacted people who have found this skink before, asked them for spots, scouted those spots, turned every rock but still had no luck. It was exhaustive, the terrain is unbelievably difficult, and turning rocks is a challenge because I had to keep holding onto the rock until I properly scan the creatures present beneath. Leaving the rock upturned for even a second will lead to it rolling all the way down on the highway, this has happened, it is scary, as you don’t want to be the reason for a fatal road accident. The rock trembles down the steep slope for a few seconds and you have no control over it, a basaltic rock the size of a football descending from an elevation of 1100m asl to around 400-500m asl can gain a massive amount of momentum in no time and will not shy to destroy and break open any human skull coming in its way.
I have done about 30+ visits to the landscape in the last 10months, and have not gotten a single glimpse of my dream saurian. I had thought it would be a great expedition story, and I might even get featured in the newspaper, lol. :p so I recorded my visits and interrogated people over phone calls like they do in detective shows. Still, no luck!
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| Just some conversations. |
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| My whiteboard looked like this back in August 2019. I recreated it yesterday for the picture. |
Nature doesn’t pamper you. No matter how much we convince ourselves, we are not even a tad-bit superior to any other species. Even after doing 30+ visits, this 1-foot long skink didn’t cross paths with me, it is still hiding somewhere on one of the hills feasting on whatever insects, animals it eats, and digging the earth with its powerful claws. I blame my poor herping skills, and lazy attitude for this, I might not have put all my efforts and lazed around sightseeing when I was supposed to be turning rocks. The chase definitely does not end here, this year I plan on doing more and well-organized visits with bigger groups to help with rock turning. The expedition has lost all of its charms, I visualized it to be one of those adventure stories that they show on Discovery and NatGeo, this is definitely not that fancy.
The idea of getting popular by tracking down this rare jewel has long gone from my head, I no longer fancy the popularity I will attract on social media after uploading its pictures. If one day, I ever come across this skink, I will not rush to grab my camera or video call people in excitement, perhaps, I’ll just sit by it, see it move...make eye contact. Gently pick it up, and be amazed by the inexplicable sheen on its body and by the fact that I am amongst those small number of humans that have had gotten a chance to see this marvel of evolution in their lifetime.
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| Some snapshots I took on good sunny days. |
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| Monsoons bring back life to the habitat. and me smiling.^_^ |
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Decent shots of some animals we found. These are just 6 of the many
amazing creatures we came across. |
In the end, over a dozen people accompanied me during my 30+ visits, I would try not to forget anyone of you in this list - Shubhankar Deshpande, Arjun Trikannad, Mayuresh Kulkarni, Chaitanya Shukla, Aditya Kshirsagar, Gokul Nair & his friend, Ritik Agarwal & his brother, Hemang Gala, and Parichay Mukhopadhyay. Thank you!
