India is home to a mind-boggling number of small cold-blooded animals and more are being discovered every few months. In the last two years, some 38 new species of frogs have been discovered in the ecologically vibrant Western Ghats alone. For the sake of scientific research a small team of scientists has gone about collating all the known species of frogs, salamanders, newts and their ilk in one comprehensive database.
“For amphibians we don’t have anything other than the list we have made now,” KP Dinesh of the Center for Ecological Sciences at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science who heads the project. “If someone wants to write a thesis or article of give some information there is no material available.”
Keeping track of amphibians is a critical task because they are the barometers of health of the environment. But compiling a database of amphibians is no easy task with the science in constant flux. Dinesh started on the mammoth project in 2005 while he worked with the Zoological Survey of India. Curious to know how many species of amphibians existed in the country and unable to find one source for the information, he started digging into documents of scientists of British India who published information on species they discovered in books. With this as a starting point, Dinesh added in species discovered over the 19th and 20th centuries using the first ever checklist of 212 species published in 1997 and adding new discoveries published in papers and journal articles.
He faced an additional challenge when, after 2001, naming systems for amphibians were changed to accommodate new families and genera that were discovered using modern tools of molecular biology.
“I started collecting all this literature and in between name change happened It took me almost four years to make the first checklist,” Dinesh said. The first checklist was published in 2009. The 2015 edition released by the Mhadei Research Center in Goa accommodates 384 amphibian species found in India. Globally, there are more than 7,000 documented species.
“For amphibians we don’t have anything other than the list we have made now,” KP Dinesh of the Center for Ecological Sciences at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science who heads the project. “If someone wants to write a thesis or article of give some information there is no material available.”
Keeping track of amphibians is a critical task because they are the barometers of health of the environment. But compiling a database of amphibians is no easy task with the science in constant flux. Dinesh started on the mammoth project in 2005 while he worked with the Zoological Survey of India. Curious to know how many species of amphibians existed in the country and unable to find one source for the information, he started digging into documents of scientists of British India who published information on species they discovered in books. With this as a starting point, Dinesh added in species discovered over the 19th and 20th centuries using the first ever checklist of 212 species published in 1997 and adding new discoveries published in papers and journal articles.
He faced an additional challenge when, after 2001, naming systems for amphibians were changed to accommodate new families and genera that were discovered using modern tools of molecular biology.
“I started collecting all this literature and in between name change happened It took me almost four years to make the first checklist,” Dinesh said. The first checklist was published in 2009. The 2015 edition released by the Mhadei Research Center in Goa accommodates 384 amphibian species found in India. Globally, there are more than 7,000 documented species.
Euphlyctis cyanophlyctis. Nocturnal frogs that are active breeders in the monsoon season.
Ramanella mormorata. Narrow-mouthed frogs that live on land but breed in water.
Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis. Subterranean frogs that are found only in the least disturbed habitats.
Ichthyophis davidi. Legless worm-like amphibians called caecilians that live below dead and decayed organic matter close to water bodies.
Gegeneophis pareshi. Nocturnal, subterranean, legless worm-like caecilians.
Photos: KP Dinesh
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