Guwahati: During the midst of CAA protest in the region and with the fearful news of a rapidly-spreading epidemic in China that soon turned into a global pandemic, researchers from Zoological Survey of India, Shillong Office, were carrying out a survey in Siju Cave, a 4 km long natural limestone cave located in South Garo Hills District of Meghalaya.
On January 2, 2020, with tell-tale signs of charred tyres on the road still visible from the protests, the ZSI team proceeded from Shillong on their scheduled visit to the cave which they have been surveying for quite some time. Their objective was to document the animal diversity of the cave which was last explored scientifically in 1922, again, by a team of ZSI, Calcutta (now Kolkata).
Any delay to survey the cave would mean that they might miss the “dry” condition of the cave, as caves in general are accessible for faunal surveys during the winters.
And the team struck “gold” the very next day. On January 3, 2020, the team made a collection of four specimens of ranid frogs of genus Amolops from inside the cave. Now, finding frogs just inside a few meters of the cave entrance is a fairly common thing; however, at Siju, the team made the collection at about 100 meters from the entrance. This was exciting as that could mean a potential new species.
However, due to their cryptic nature, distinguishing different species of Amolops in the field can be a challenge, for which the team went for molecular studies to ascertain that along with morphological characters and the unique cave environment, they are indeed handling a species new to science. For this, the team collaborated with their colleagues in ZSI, Pune that has an established molecular lab.
Frogs are known to inhabit subterranean worlds of caves due to the constant humidity and temperature that a cave ecosystem provides.
“However, what is extremely rare is the discovery of a new species of frog from a cave. In what is being the first ever such discovery from Northeast India (second in India after the discovery of Micrixalus spelunca in 2014 from a cave in Tamil Nadu), the researchers from ZSI, Shillong and ZSI, Pune have named the Cascade ranid frog from Siju as a new a species, Amolops siju,” Bhaskar Saikia, a scientist with the North Eastern Regional Centre of Zoological Survey of India told EastMojo.
The finding is published in the latest issue of the international research journal, Journal of Animal Diversity published from Lorestan University, Iran.
“Although the specimens were collected from the twilight (60-100 m from cave entrance) and the dark zones (beyond 100 m of cave entrance) of the cave, the team did not find any troglobitic (cave adapted) modification, suggesting that this species of frog is not a permanent resident of the cave,” Saikia said.
“What was interesting is that there have been reports of the presence of frog populations (up to 400 m from cave entrance) in Siju Cave since 1922 when the first bio-speleological exploration of the cave was done by ZSI. Intriguing as it may sound, the report of frog populations in a resource scarce, dark cave habitat over the course of a century is something that ecologists or biologists can take note of,” he further said.
“Future study on the energy flows of the various trophic levels of the detritus food web and food chains of Siju cave will certainly be interesting that is currently known to harbour more than 100 animals species, mostly invertebrates like cave crickets, spiders, beetles, earthworms, etc.,” he said.
ZSI is mandated to survey and inventorise the faunal diversity of India and as such this discovery was a part of a research project on the faunal documentation of Siju Cave.
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The team that made these discoveries are Bhaskar Saikia and Dr Bikramjit Sinha of ZSI, Shillong, and Dr KP Dinesh and MsShabnam Ansari of ZSI, Pune. Interestingly, this is the fourth new species of Cascade frog (Amolops) being published by the same team in the recent past from Arunachal Pradesh. It can be recalled here that Amolops chanakya, Amolops terraorchis and Amolops tawang were described from Arunachal Pradesh, Northeast India.
During the study, the ZSI team was of the opinion that the amphibian fauna of North-eastern India is not fully explored and there is potential for many more new species to be discovered from this biogeographical fauna rich hotspot. The new species explorations are adding value to the biological wealth of the country where most of these species are endemic to small geographic landscapes.
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