Meet the Nutcracker, a pine gentleman! Among the many trees that forge a symbiotic alliance with the Nutcracker is the Chilgoza pine, a rare and commercially important pine variety, now threatened with extinction. Comic from my column with Sunday Midday.
Read Ananda Banerjee's article on this relationship for a more detailed insight, which also sheds light on economist Rinki Sarkar's chance discovery on the Chilgoza-Nutcracker symbiosis, and her efforts to study and conserve this relationship.