A new species of frog, India's smallest, has been discovered in the Western Ghats

10/12/2006 00:00:00 India’s smallest land vertebrate, a 10-millimeter long frog, has been discovered in the Western Ghats of Kerala by Delhi University Biologist, S. D. Biju and his colleagues. There are as many as 2,400 vertebrate species in India, including 218 frog species. S D Biju and his colleagues discovered the tiny night-frog living under leaf litter and among the roots of ferns in the humid rainforest of the Western Ghats. Biju named the frog, Nyctibatrachus minimus.

With adult males of barely 10 mm in length, Nyctibatrachus minimus is the smallest of all known Indian land vertebrates and competes with miniature frogs in other parts of the world including Cuba, Borneo and the Amazon.

This frog usually found during the night (hence the common name of the genus- Nightfrog) and mating calls can be heard from under the leaf litter during the monsoon months.

Biju has been working in the Western Ghats to find new species of frogs over the past several years. His findings include the purple frog (Nasikabatrachus) and the first canopy frog (Philautus nerostagona) from India.