7th BMC ecology image competition

Dr Saraswathivilasam S Suresh, Senior Orthopaedic Consultant (Ibri Regional Referral Hospital, Sultanate of Oman) and an MCh (Orth) graduate from 1999, won the runner-up prize in the prestigious BMC ecology image competition in August 2020.

Dr Suresh explained:

“I have a passion for wildlife photography, and I’m delighted that recently one of my pictures won international recognition. The photograph of a lizard was overall runner-up in a competition run by the BMC Ecology Journal published by Springer. This competition is for people who work in research institutions worldwide. The competition was covered by media all over the world including the Daily Mirror, Scientific American, and the BBC. The same image was featured in Wild Planet photo magazine in a feature on world lizard day.

I was an MCh (Orth) Dundee student in 1998-99 and my research topic was on the management of distal radius fractures, which was a comparative study between external fixation based on the principle of ligamentotaxis and cast immobilisation. For the last 16 years I’ve been heading the Department of Orthopaedics in a regional hospital in the Sultanate of Oman. My training in Dundee helped me in learning the art of publications and I now have over 65 international papers, most of which are Pubmed indexed. I’m also co-author of a book on calcaneal fractures published by Jaypee Publications India.”

The common green forest lizard (Calotes calotes) is large among the lizard species measuring 50-65cm long, from head to tail. It is found in the forests of the Western Ghats and the Shevaroy Hills in India, and Sri Lanka. This lizard, as its name suggests, has a bright green dorsal colouration, usually with five or six white, cream or dark green transverse stripes continuing to the tail. The head is yellowish- or brownish-green whereas the male develops a bright red head and throat in the breeding season as seen in Dr Suresh’s stunning photograph.