New 'moustached' amphibians discovered in India

A newly discovered moustached Caecillians. Photo credit S D Biju, www.frogindia.org

October 2009. Three new species of legless amphibians have been discovered in the forests of India's north-eastern states, Manipur and Nagaland.

These species have a moustache-like stripe on their upper lip. This peculiar characteristic is being reported for the first time for caecilians. Worldwide, there are more than 170 species of caecilians. Biju and his colleagues named one of the three species as Ichthyophis moustakius, or moustached Ichthyophis.

This discovery doubled the number of the species of this challenging group known in northeast India. Studying caecilians is a challenge for scientists; locating this group of animals is extremely difficult simply because they usually live under soil. Caecilians can be found only by randomly digging up soil, there is no indicator that predicts where caecilians can be found.

Northeast India- a vanishing ‘haven' of unique amphibians
Northeast India, comprising of the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim and Darjeeling district of West Bengal, lies at the junction of Indo-Burma and Himalaya global biodiversity hotspots. The biodiversity in this region is rapidly vanishing; habitat destruction by humans is the main cause of this rapid depletion. Significantly, the three new species are from an area where there is rapid destruction of forest to provide agricultural land.

This discovery further highlights the need to conserve species and their habitats in the northeast India. Forests here continue to be threatened and large areas are being destroyed for agriculture and urbanization. Seemingly small disturbances in habitat could wipe out several species.

Not venomous - Not snakes
Immediate steps are required to protect the remaining forests from human activities like slash and burn cultivation. Apart from habitat destruction, local myth also contributes to caecilian depletion as local communities believe that caecilians are extremely venomous ‘snakes'. Actually caecilians are neither venomous nor are they snakes! They never bite, and in fact they only open their mouth for feeding!

Amphibian researcher S D Biju, Associate Professor, University of Delhi, led the team that made this remarkable discovery. Ms Rachunliu G Kamei, Biju's PhD student and lecturer in St Stephens College, University of Delhi, spearheaded this research article. The research team had two collaborators from The Natural History Museum, London: Drs David Gower and Mark Wilkinson. This discovery is a result of the ongoing research collaboration between University of Delhi and The Natural History Museum, London through The Royal Society London/CSIR, India initiatives.

The new find was published in the latest issue of Zootaxa (International Journal of Zoological Taxonomy). The publication can be accessed here.

Financial support for field and lab studies: The Royal Society - CSIR, (International Joint Project Grants Programme between DU and NHM - 2007/R4) Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF), Conservation International, IUCN/ASG University of Delhi (support to faculty for strengthening R & D program)