A Spooky Story
You are a termite. Yes a termite. I know, that is a scary story in itself, but let’s get into character. You are a soil termite living in the moist, luscious soil of the Western Ghats tropical forest habitat. You go along, content as can be, burrowing around in your colony, minding your own business. Life is great except for the supposed threat of giant, purple, fat monsters that you have only heard about in Grandma Termite’s stories. It is a typical night when all of a sudden the walls of your burrow shake. Wait. No, it was nothing. But again, the walls shake and start crumbling around you. That definitely was not nothing. All of a sudden, a bulbous snout protrudes through your ceiling, and all you can see is the fluted tongue of the monster in the stories Grandma Termite told you. It searches around your burrow, trying to find you as your entire life flashes before your eyes. You scramble around in a panic, trying to burrow deeper into the soil away from the beast, but you are too slow. The giant anuran’s tongue pulls you in and the last thing you see is the dark abyss of the beast’s mouth as your worst nightmare comes true. The notorious N. sahyadrensis just ate you for dinner. The poor soil termites of the Western Ghats live in constant fear of becoming this fierce, underground predator’s next meal.
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