Frog’s

Sanchita Chatterjee, BS News Agency: A major eight-year study by scientists from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, and the Natural History Museum, London, has rewritten what we know about bush frogs in Northeast India. The team has formally described 13 new species, marking one of the most significant amphibian discoveries in the region in recent years.

Picture BS News Agency.  researchers surveyed 81 locations across Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and West Bengal between 2016 and 2024, collecting 204 specimens. Their goal was to resolve a long-standing taxonomic puzzle surrounding Raorchestes, a group of tiny, visually similar frogs that are notoriously difficult to distinguish by appearance alone.

To accurately identify the species, the team used an integrative method combining mitochondrial and nuclear DNA analysis, detailed morphological measurements and recordings of each frog’s unique advertisement call. While the frogs look nearly identical to the eye, their genetics and acoustic signatures proved crucial in separating one species from another.

The new species are small, most between 13 and 28 mm and occupy similar ecological niches. The study also found clear patterns in their calls: smaller frogs produced high-frequency calls, while larger species had lower-frequency calls. With this revision, the total number of recognised Raorchestes species in Northeast India increases to 21.

Many of the newly described frogs are point endemics found only in their discovery locations, with seven occurring inside or near protected areas such as Namdapha Tiger Reserve.