Last frog species wash up on Cauvery shores
Much water has flown down the Cauvery in the last 73 years.
The landscape of the Western Ghats too has changed substantially. But these tiny creatures were not spotted by anybody in the last seven decades.
Researchers has now rediscovered these “lost” frogs as part of a national effort to find out 50 lost amphibians of India. The search for “India's 50 most wanted” amphibians, including frogs, was launched about three months ago. Within three months, the team found the first lot, four of which are from the southern states. The species from Karnataka is an elegant tropical frog (Micrixalus elegans), which is known to scientists from an original description based on a collection in 1937. The original specimen was lost till it was rediscovered by field biologists in a forest stream-bed in Kempholey in Hassan district.
The most vintage of the five was a green species that was last seen in 1874. Rediscovered from Kodayar in Tamil Nadu after 136 years, the striking fluorescent green frog with ash-blue thighs and black pupils with golden patches leads a secretive life, presumably inside reeds during the day.
“I was so excited to see the Chalazodes Bubble Nest frog in life after 136 years. I have never seen a frog with such brilliant colours in my 25 years of research,” said S D Biju, a frog-hunter from Delhi University, who spearheaded the campaign.
The other three rediscovered species are Anamalai Dot-frog (found after 73 years from Parambikulam, Kerala), Silent Valley Tropical frog and Dehradun stream frog. The last two were seen 25-30 years ago, whereas the remaining three were not seen for decades.
The Silent Valley Tropical frog was located inside a dustbin in a field station. The team, which was on its trail, later found several more of the amphibians adjacent to a stream-bed under leaf litter. With 321 species, India has remarkable amphibian diversity. Unfortunately, India has already lost 13 per cent of its amphibians which places it as the country with the maximum number of lost species in the world, said Biju, a biologist.
All that is known of these species are only very brief century-old original descriptions and sketchy illustrations. The lost species are as recent as 18 years or as far back as 170 years.
A species is ‘lost’ when it has not been located for a substantial period of time since its original description and is considered to be actually or potentially extinct in the wild. The frogs are disappearing mainly due to man-made habitat destruction.
