Bandipur National Park
Head view of a very cool and horned Ontophagus spec and a tree bark mantis saying "hello"
I was going for a weekend trip to Bandipur National Park that is quite close to the Nilgiris and two other National Parks. The Bandipur National Park is part of the Western Ghats, a mountain range in South India. My plan was to encounter the South Indian Nature and rainforest, which is totally new and interesting for me. I arrived at around 3 o'clock at my accommodation inside the park which was in the middle of a very vast and plain area, with only a few trees. This area is mostly used for feeding of cattle, thus there is a lot of dung, which is eaten up by dung beetles. I was quite lucky to find many different species of dung beetles just on the ground during daytime. After having lunch me and some friends made a jungle tour in a bus to see the more spectacular animals of the Park. It was amazing to see wild peacocks, wild boars, mongoose, langur and macaque monkeys, thousands of small dear and a few big samba stags. To me the most thrilling sighting was the sighting of two bulls of Gaur, a huge kind of buffalo. It is not allowed to walk inside the park, as there are some risks, such as wild tigers and elephants.
Copris spec. and tree bark mantis
After the jungle trip, we went back to our hut in the grasslands and had dinner. I managed to collect many different smaller species of dung beetles at the only light in that place, sadly, I did not manage to catch any Lucanidae, which have been seen occasionally as some locals told me. Among the dung beetles I found one specimen which had very interesting horns, alike Zebu cows. You can see it on my pictures. As work was calling, the next morning I had to go back to Bangalore but not without discovering a very small couple of Buprestidae. On my way to Bangalore during a stop, I found a tree bark mantis on a tree, which actually was almost invisible on the tree bark.
Scarabaeus spec. and where is the mantis
All in all a pleasant and successful overnight trip from Bangalore. It takes about 7 hours by bus and is about 260km away from Bangalore. I am quite sure I will go there again, but the next and real collections shall take place in the Nilgiris. To give a better Idea, Ooty is only 40 km away from the Bandipur National Park, and from there are Odontolabis burmeisteri and Prosopocoilus giraffa nilgirensis reported. I really hope to encounter these species alive and wild in nature.
PS:
Thanks to my friend Ichiro Oshio for identifying the Dung beetles....
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