India, US researchers find 5 new species of frogs in Western Ghats
KOCHI: Researchers from India and the US have discovered five new species of shrub frogs from the Western Ghats, one of the globally recognised biodiversity hotspots.
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Researchers said the new species were identified and found to be distinct based on multiple criteria, such as their external morphology, DNA, calling pattern, behaviour, and other natural history observations.
The findings are published in a scientific article titled ‘’An integrative approach to infer systematic relationships and define species groups in the shrub frog (genus Raorchestes), with description of five new species from the Western Ghats, India’’. The authors are Sonali Garg, Robin Suyesh, Sandeep Das, Mark A Bee, and Prof S D Biju and it is published in the current issue of the International journal PeerJ.
The study was carried out under the leadership of Delhi University Professor Biju.
While one of the new species called Raorchestes drutaahu (Fast-calling Shrub Frog) was discovered from two localities: Kadalar in Idukki district and Siruvani in Palakkad district of Kerala, another one named Raorchestes kakkayamensis (Kakkayam Shrub Frog) was found only in the vicinity of Kakkayam dam in the southern state.
Raorchestes keirasabinae (Keira’s Shrub Frog), a unique tree frog inhabiting the highest canopy layers, was found in Agasthyamalai and Anamalai hills in the southern Western Ghats. The species is named after young nature lover Keira Sabin.