I'm a curious naturalist interested in all creatures great and small.
I'm a curious naturalist interested in all creatures great and small.
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Girish Kumar G. S. (a.k.a. Southern Dragon)
I am a naturalist interested in all creatures great and small. Pokémon was perhaps my greatest childhood inspiration, drawing me toward plants and animals!
In Bangalore, rare though it is, a reserve forest sits right next to my school, and I spent a lot of time exploring it. Taking great joy in the oddest of things that the forest could offer from tiny lantana fruits and self-burial grass seeds to scary spiders and mongooses. I continued this in high school and started butterfly watching during my bachelor's (I can still identify more Pokémons than butterflies, XD). In my master's, I got to study the visual pathway in bird brains, which then piqued my interest in neuroscience. I then decided to go down a path that combines the two of my interests, insects and neurobiology.
I recently graduated from Prof. Sanjay Sane's lab (Insect Flight Lab) at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, India. For my thesis, I investigated the control of jump in insects, specifically praying mantises and katydids.
See the research section for more.
I ate some wild fruits and it turns out that it stains your tongue purple! And not to mention, the fruits were incredibly delicious. The fruits are from Melastoma malabathricum in Agumbe, Karnataka, India.
P. C.- Ganesh Ram
Some of my random clicks!
Some of my random clicks!
Inflammation is not just swelling, but it gets hot!
A carpenter bee sting triggered a rapid local inflammatory response, with visible redness, swelling, and an increase in temperature captured using a thermal camera.
A touch that lights up
Using frustrated total internal reflection (FTIR) to visualise katydid foot contact with the glass surface
A colorful star
A long-exposure motion blur of the star Sirius. The twinkling of the star, seen as rapid changes in its brightness and colour, is clearly visible here.
Once in search of a faint blue glow
Decommissioned gamma-ray telescope at NCBS-TIFR Field Station, Pachmarhi.
An angel with a hood
Flower of some wild Balsam (Impatiens sp.)
A wizard
Flower of a Bladderwort (Utricularia sp.)
A hell hole
The entrance to a nest of some unidentified ant
An earthy Gateway Arch
An earthworm cast after a rainny day
What's the deal with "Southern Dragon" and the logo you ask!?
What's the deal with "Southern Dragon" and the logo you ask!?
All of this began with one of the greatest shows I've come across, Avatar the Last Airbender! The fantasy world of bending elements i.e., being able to fling rocks and move water to breathe fire and to blow gales at will. Since the day I watched this show in my childhood, I've always been daydreaming about bending elements. Growing up, I started drawing life inspiration from the characters in this show. One of them is Uncle Iroh, or General Iroh, a.k.a. General of the Fire Nation Army, the Crown Prince of the Fire Nation (formerly), the Dragon of the West, the Grand Lotus of the Order of the White Lotus, and the finest tea maker in Ba Sing Se [1,2]. He's pretty badass for an old guy!
Unlike in Kung Fu Panda where Master Oogway immediately struck me as an inspirational character, General Iroh's influence was gradual. And the whimsical part of me also wanted a cool title like that of Iroh's, "The dragon of the west". For brevity's sake and to make it sound catchy, I was left with the other three cardinal directions - Northern, Eastern, and Southern Dragon, Southern Dragon sounded cool, so I named myself that! It's not yet a title, but I hope it becomes one someday.
Oh, and the logo! Well, I was always fascinated by dragons, and if I ever were to be a dragon, I would be the kind without wings and arms, very similar to the dragon of Dragon Ball Z. And I always wanted a logo of mine, who doesn't? And yeah, it's not a SNAKE!
My strength lies with/in the people around me, if not all of it, then certainly a great deal of it!
- Southern Dragon
My strength lies with/in the people around me, if not all of it, then certainly a great deal of it!
- Southern Dragon
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