Forests are not the places where you go to find your soul or life purpose! It is not as fancy as it sounds... Especially rainforests! I have done my bits of careless mistakes and learned lessons which I think I’ll never forget, I hope I don’t. I very strongly hope I don’t.
Until Jan 2019, my Herp outings were only limited to the few rainy months of the south-west monsoon, where the only thing to worry about was leeches. I had overcome the fear of leeches rather quickly, they were petty issues, I would just pluck them off, roll them into a ball and shoot them very very far into the thick forest bushes. Sometimes, I would willingly bait myself to the leeches, just to mess around, it was fun. Forests were fun. Until….
The dry season, Western ghats are pretty warm-inside during the Spring. So to my Amboli trip on Jan-19, I packed a lot of shorts and uhh... Sleeveless shirts! “Everyone’s going to whine in the forest about feeling boiled inside their full-length clothes while I will nicely vibe with my summer look” - is what went through my mind while stuffing clothes into that rucksack.
I was more ready than ever, on our first day at Amboli, we did a few hours of day herping - and guess what? Everyone did whine about the heat. But I had my airy boxers on; I rolled down on to the leaf litter, climbed the crooked trees & caught Geckos, dived in the bushes - had the time of my life, while others flapped leaf fans over their faces to beat the heat.
“You’re such a Smartass Anuj!” - I drowned in my pride.
On the same night, I discovered a cute little creature while scratching my stomach. There he was… with his jaws deeply rooted in my flesh, I pulled it out in a jerk and it broke his mouthparts, ripping my skin off leaving behind a very unusual wound. That day I discovered a completely new level of pain, I took a deep breath and tried to recollect what just happened. Seeing the rest of the insect body clenched between my fingers, I felt sad for him...This was the last time I felt sad for this insect.
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| A TICK!!! |
Now I am going to explain to you the structure of a Tick's mouth - stay with me. We’ll do it with minimum scientific jargon.
A Tick is this badass insect that likes to feast on mammal blood, so when I was rolling on the forest floor - they were having a rave party on my body. Ticks, very skillfully pierce their highly modified mouthparts into our skin - their mouthpart is serrated backward which means once it is inside it gets locked up in that position, any force pulling it on the other side will only stress the skin and will eventually tear it off like what happened with me.
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| distal end of mouthpart |
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| trying to dig into the skin |