Mautam

Flowering bamboo

Mautâm is a cyclic ecological phenomenon that occurs every 48–50 years in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur, as well as in many places of Assam which are 30% covered by wild bamboo forests, and Chin State in Myanmar, particularly Hakha, Thantlang, Falam, Paletwa and Matupi Townships. It begins with a rat population boom, which in turn creates a widespread famine in those areas.[1]

During mautâm, Melocanna baccifera, a species of bamboo, flowers at one time across a wide area. This event is followed invariably by a plague of black rats in what is called a rat flood.[2][3] The bamboo flowering brings a temporary windfall of seeds, and rats multiply, exhaust the bamboo seeds, leave the forests, forage on stored grain, and cause devastating famine.[4]

  1. ^ "Swarms of rats destroy crops in townships in Chin state", Inside Burma, Mizzima.
  2. ^ Rat Attack, Plant vs. Predator, PBS.
  3. ^ Normile, D (February 2010). "Holding back a torrent of rats". Science. 327 (5967): 806–7. Bibcode:2010Sci...327..806N. doi:10.1126/science.327.5967.806. PMID 20150483.
  4. ^ Foster, Peter (14 October 2004), Bamboo threatens to bring Indian famine, Papillons art palace, archived from the original on 20 December 2010, retrieved 4 June 2006.