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25 February 2022.
Introduction;
The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Pune, has discovered a new frog species which are growing in the freshwater regions along all the states spanning the Western Ghats.
Overview:
- Scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, Mount Carmel College (MCC), Bengaluru, tied up on the discovery.
- This discovery was the Zoological Survey of India’s (WGRC, Kozhikode) part of a faunal exploration and documenting effort in the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary.
- This new species looks quite similar to the common skittering frog (Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis), which is found generally in the eastern coastal plains, the Western Ghats, and the Deccan Plateau.
About Euphlyctis jaladhara
- The common name of this frog is Jaladhara skittering frog and Euphlyctis jaladhara is the scientific name.
- This species was first discovered in freshwater bodies located near the Thattekad Bird Sanctuary in Ernakulam District of Kerala.
- This is the second skittering frog species discovered in this area.
- The Kerala Pond Frog (Phrynoderma Kerala) was also discovered in the same area.
- Multiple populations of this species have been discovered in forest surveys which have focused on freshwater bodies in Goa, Karnataka, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
Conservation plans have to be made focusing on this newly discovered frog species so that the population grows