kolkata several hundred citizens in kolkata including students at ballygunge science college st johns diocesan vidyasagar college and adamas university participated in the city nature challenge an international effort to find and document the flora and fauna in cities across the globe this is the first time that kolkata is part of the challenge that was initiated in the spring of 2016 by the community science staff lila higgins at the natural history museum of los angeles and alison young and rebecca johnson at the california academy of sciences in its first year over 20000 observations were made by more than 1000 people in a oneweek period cataloguing approximately 1600 species in each location including new records for both areas this year 485 cities in 46 countries have signed up for the challengenature mates a kolkatabased green action group is the nodal agency coordinating the city challenge here the city nature challenge that kicked off on friday is a fourday event and it will conclude on mondaywe encourage the participants to record the biodiversity be the insects in their homes or birds reptiles and trees outdoors they have to upload the photographs on the inaturalist platform where they can be identified and updated by researchers said nature mates volunteer namrata das while sharing biodiversity observations one cannot share images of potted plants pets or peopleat the city nature challenge citizens observations will reflect the biodiversity of kolkata said nature mates founder arjan basu roythe first city nature challenge was an eightday competition between los angeles and san francisco engaging residents and visitors in documenting nature to better understand urban biodiversity