They had not heard of such a frog call in the Namdapha-Kamlang landscape of Arunachal Pradesh.
It was similar to the quack….quack…quack call of a wild duck.
A new species of music frog has been recorded by biologists from the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and the University of Wolverhampton, UK in collaboration with Arunachal Pradesh Forest Department from near Gandhigram close to Namdapha Tiger Reserve. This has been named after the gorgeous Noa-Dihing River as “Noa-Dihing Music Frog.” (Nidirana noadihing).
The team comprised Bitupan Boruah, Abhijit Das from the Wildlife Institute of India and V Deepak from the Natural History Museum, London.
Field surveys were carried out during August and September 2022 in Changlang district and Lohit district of Arunachal Pradesh, India. The team carried out nocturnal visual encounter surveys and followed the acoustics of male anurans between 18:00 and 24:00 hrs to locate the frogs aided with torch lights.
Researchers from the team which found the newly discovered frog say it grows up to six centimetres characterised by a pale cream-coloured line on the mid-body, and with a unique call pattern consisting of two-three notes. The first note is (Type I) is different from the later ones (Type II) in structure and temporal parameters. The first note (Type I) is followed by one or two Type II notes.
“Initially, we heard the call from a marsh near Noa-Dihing River which is quite similar to wild duck species like “quack….quack…quack” which we had never heard before. Subsequently, the species was also discovered in the surrounding marshy habitat of the picturesque Glaw Lake of Kamlang Tiger Reserve in 2022. The marshy habitat is dominated by a particular grass species called “Rotala” in which males make circular pits almost like their private pools and call from the pits to attract female frogs,” the researchers said.
The interesting breeding, egg laying and parental care if any still remain unknown for this interesting marsh-adapted frog species.
“Discovery of a new species from the close vicinity of one of the largest protected areas of northeast India indicates further study likely to uncover more populations of Nidirana noadihing inside Namdapha Tiger Reserve. As the new species inhabits swampy areas, the conservation of such habitats inside the protected area and its surroundings is crucial. The addition of three new species of amphibians within one year underscores the biological richness of the region and flags the need for further exploration in hyper-diverse Namdapha-Kamlang landscape,” they said.
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The researchers said the stunningly new finding marks the third consecutive discovery of new species of amphibians from the extraordinarily biodiverse easternmost tiger reserve of India this year. These novel findings are also significant for the fact that all these discoveries represent new generic records for the country.
These findings were published in international peer-reviewed journals from Germany, London and New Zealand.
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