PANJIM: Scientists have identified a new species of frog called ‘Fejervarya Goemchi,’ in the highland plateaus of the Western Ghat region of Goa, which is known for its long ‘trook, trook’ croaking call.
As it was discovered in the coastal State, the new species is named after Goa.
A herpetologist attached to Mhadei Research Centre (MRC) Nirmal Kularni said that these terrestrial frogs belong to the amphibian genus Fejervarya of the family Dicroglossidae and are commonly known as either ‘cricket frogs’ or ‘fejervaryan frogs’.
“These frogs range in size from small (19 mm) to large (56 mm) are distributed throughout Asia. Most fejervaryan frogs are morphologically very similar and difficult to identify on the basis of external characters alone, creating taxonomic uncertainty in terms of names, identification and systematic,” he said in a press statement.
A team led by K P Dinesh, from Zoological Survey of India, Pune; Kulkarni; Priyanka Swami of Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and P Deepak of Mount Carmel College, Bangalore have published their findings on a new species of large fejervaryan frog in the recent edition of the records of the Zoological Survey of India
Kulkarni said that the new species of fejervaryan frog is a large frog measuring 41 to 46 mm and can be seen in the fields with peak activity during the onset of the monsoon (June) to post monsoon (September). “Most fejervaryan species in South and South-east Asia are cryptic and difficult to identify on the basis of morphology alone,” he said.
