Asian Geographic Magazines

Water bear is the friendlier name for a tiny creature so resilient it is able to survive in winter ice and the deepest of oceans.

By Jayanta Sarkar, Anthropological Survey of India Additional Information Researchers at the Database for Indigenous Cultural Evolution, University of Missouri; Anvita Abbi, Professor of Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Survival International; authors of Andaman Beacon The isolated tribes of the Andaman Islands – the Jarawa, Great Andamese, Onge and Sentinelese – are believed to have occupied the islands of the Indian Ocean...

The geometric form of pollen – the male part of the higher plants – is as strikingly beautiful as the plants from which they come.

A theory gone unheeded for decades finally came to the attention of the scientific community and struck gold in 2003, when bones of a new, pygmy-sized hominin species were discovered on the island of Flores, Indonesia.

In 2014, the Limnonectes larvaepartus, or tadpole-laying frog, was finally characterised as a new species, 25 years since the first individual was discovered in the Wartabone National Park in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Whether they are tied into place as the weaver's imagination wanders, or aligned in code-like calculations, the minuscule knots of a carpet narrate tales of an ancient craft and those who keep it alive.

The tiniest creatures have caused countless deaths, out of which man has earned his immunity, his right to survive among this planet's infinite organisms.

The romantic, tumultuous history of the spice trade is replete with stories of war, conquest and foul play – all for the sake of tiny grains that changed medicinal, culinary and trade history.