One more species of frog found in Western Ghats

Addressing a news conference, St Aloysius College Principal Swebert D’Silva said that the newly-discovered frog has been named ‘Euphlyctes Aloysii’ (after St Aloysius) and the discovery has been made by Dr Hareesh Joshy, Head of the Zoology Department, St Aloysius College, and Prof Mitusuru Kuramoto, Emeritus Professor, Fukuoka University (Japan).

Speaking about the new species, Dr Joshy, who has been involved in research on bio-diversity of frogs in Western Ghats for the last 12 years, said that ‘Euphlyctes Aloysii’ is presently found in fields of Adyar and Bajpe in Mangalore, and in the Western Ghats.

“It is a tiny water frog about 1 to 2 inches long, with a mixture of dark brown and green colour. It resembles the ‘Rana Hexadactylus’ but differs from it in terms of 25 aspects, in morphometric analysis, acoustic studies and DNA,” said Dr Joshy and added that it has a thin mid-dorsal white stripe, small black spots distributed randomly from beneath the eye to the fore limb base.

At night, the dorsal marking becomes slowly inconspicuous.

“There are about 260 species of frogs in India, and over 140 species are found in Western ghats alone,” he said  and added that the new species was spotted by him about one and half year ago. Between 2003-2009, a total of 8 new species of frogs were found by him.