Mautam

Mautâm (lit. 'The Finish of Mau Bamboo') 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.

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. 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.

Regular rodent outbreaks associated with bamboo flowering (and subsequent fruiting and seeding) also occur in the nearby Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland, as well as in Laos, Japan, Madagascar, and South America. Thingtâm, a similar famine, occurs with the flowering of another species of bamboo, Bambusa tulda.