The Hindu : The frog and the scientist

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 21, 2003

Science & Tech

Science & Tech

The frog and the scientist

By P. Venugopal

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Oct. 20. A slimy, rubbery, burrowing frog has sent S.D. Biju leapfrogging from the marshes and forests of the Western Ghats, where he had been engaged in rigorous field research for the last nine years, to a world of international recognition.

His discovery of this three-inch-long purple, snub-nosed frog (in picture) of the Western Ghats, which he and a Brussels-based scientist, Franky Bossuyt, have reported in the latest issue of Nature, is being described by biologists as a special, "once-in-a-century find''. Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, represents not only a new species but also a new family of frogs.

Its internal anatomy and DNA sequence data show that it belongs to a species that existed in the age of the dinosaurs. Its closest relatives now live in Seychelles, 3,000 km south of the Indian peninsula, providing yet another piece of evidence in support of the theory of continental drift. According to the theory, India was part of a southern supercontinent called Gondwanaland 160 million years ago. Seychelles is believed to have broken away from the Indian landmass some 65 million years ago.

This is how S. Blair Hedges, who reviewed the find in the `news and views' section of Nature describes it: "Just how significant is the discovery of another family of frogs? Only 29 families are known, encompassing the approximately 4,800 known species. Most of these families were named by the mid-1800s, and the last discovery of a species of frog belonging to a new family, as opposed to merely a taxonomic rearrangement, was in 1926. All others date to the 1700s and 1800s, making this a `once-in-a-century find'.''

Dr. Biju, a conservation biologist at the Tropical Botanical Garden Research Institute at Palode here, is acknowledged as an authority on frogs. A synopsis of the frog fauna of the Western Ghats, which he brought out recently, mentions four new genera and about 115 new species. They are awaiting scientific description.

"The Western Ghats is considered one of the `hottest of hot spots' of biodiversity in the world. It is a gold mine for the biologist,'' Dr. Biju, who is now in London undertaking a research programme at the British Museum, told The Hindu over the phone.

He said Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis was, in fact, widely distributed in the forests of the Western Ghats and the adjoining plantations in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. A specimen was first handed over to him by villagers digging a well at Kattappana in Kerala's Idukki district, who found it sitting immobile nearly seven feet down in the mud.

According to Dr. Hedges, more than anything else this discovery shows how incomplete the knowledge of biological diversity is today, even at the higher taxonomic levels. "Extraordinary discoveries such as this show that there is an urgent need for more biotic surveys. Many species which occur in biodiversity hot spots like the Western Ghats are found nowhere else, but such repositories are fast drying up all over the world,'' he says.

Dr. Biju, who hails from Kadakkal village in Thiruvananthapuram district, is basically a botanist. His interest in frogs was sparked by the many odd specimens of frogs he encountered during his botanical surveys in the Western Ghats forests. The frogs in some of the photos he brought back from the forests could not be identified even by experts in the field. Identifying them by looking up the available literature on the subject became a challenge for him and soon he found himself drawn into the world of frogs.

Dr. Bossuyt is an evolutionary geneticist at the Brussels Free University in Belgium and his role in tracing the evolution of the frog by analysing DNA clues has been crucial in this finding.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Science & Tech

News Update

Stories in this Section

The frog and the scientist

'China may go in for longer manned missions'