In news- Anaimalai flying frog has got a new home.
Key updates-
- A Naturalist, frog enthusiast and Kerala Tourism guide has constructed two ponds at Windermere Estate to restore the habitat for the Anaimalai flying frog.
- He sought support from the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), which took it up as its first rapid action project for amphibian conservation and offered to fund it.
- There is a popular misconception that these frogs feed on the cardamom pods.
- But they don’t feed on the pods and instead they feed on insects and other pests.
About Anaimalai flying frog-
- The frog is also called the false Malabar gliding frog and false Malabar tree frog.
- Scientific name is Rhacophorus pseudomalabaricus.
- It is endemic to the Anaimalai Hills, a part of the southern the Western Ghats in the Tamil Nadu and Kerala states, India.
- It is a slender-bodied frog.
- It has a concave head and a rounded, laterally-oriented snout that projects slightly beyond its lower jaw.
- The fingers and toes are extensively webbed and the webbing is light yellow.
- Juveniles have a distinctive black zebra-like pattern that becomes fainter in adults, resembling venation of leaf.
- The numbers of these frogs have declined rapidly due to the loss of habitat.
- It has been recorded in tropical moist evergreen forest, in secondary forests on the fringe of abandoned cardamom plantation, in a marshy area beside a perennial stream and near an artificial water hole between the evergreen forest and tea plantation.
- This species is known from at least two protected areas, Indira Gandhi National Park and Parambikulam Tiger Reserve.
- IUCN status: Critically endangered
Source: The Hindu
