-According to a scientific paper published in The Journal of Threatened Taxa (an international journal on conservation and taxonomy) a new night frog species ‘Nyctibatrachus mewasinghi’ was discovered from Kerala.
-The frog has been named after wildlife scientist Mewa Singh, in honour of his contributions to behavioural ecology and primate studies.
-This species belongs to a genus endemic to the Western Ghats, from Kozhikode’s Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary.
Features: This new species iss light brown in colour with an off-white underside, and sports faintly wrinkled skin with prominent granular projections.
-The frog’s genetically closest relatives are the Athirappilly night frog (found south of the Palakkad Gap in Thrissur and Idukki) and the Kempholey night frog (found in the northern Western Ghats of Kerala and Karnataka).
-Morphologically, the Mewa Singh’s night frog can be distinguished from these similar-looking and genetically close relatives by several physical characteristics, including the pattern of its webbed fingers and toes.
-The new frog is currently known only from Peruvannamuzhi in the Malabar Wildlife Sanctuary, where the scientists found it in a small stream running along the Peruvannamuzhi dam.
About Night Frongs: Frogs in the genus Nyctibatrachus, commonly known as night frogs, are found only in the Western Ghats mountain range.
-The addition of the Mewa Singh’s night frog to this group brings the total number of night frogs to 36.
