Five new diminutive horned frog species discovered in Arunachal Pradesh

A team of Indian and American scientists has discovered five new species of diminutive horned frogs in Arunachal Pradesh.

The discoveries, based on five years of extensive explorations in northeast India, have more than doubled the known diversity of the genus Jingophrys, commonly known as diminutive horned frogs. The findings were published in the latest issue of the Royal Society Open Science, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Royal Society, London.

The research, which sheds fresh light on the Himalayas as an overlooked centre of hidden biodiversity and evolutionary diversification, was undertaken by scientists from the University of Delhi and Harvard University. In addition to the five newly described species, the study reported two new country records for India and identified other unnamed populations that could represent distinct new species.

Names linked to communities

All five new species were discovered in Arunachal Pradesh. Three have names linked to local communities, languages or the regions where they were found. The Tanii Horned Frog, Jingophrys taniitatii, honours the Tanii tribe of the Ziro Valley region and incorporates the Apatani word 'tatii', meaning frogs and toads.

Another species, Jingophrys tanogogo, or the Snail-eating Horned Frog, was named after researchers discovered entire land-snail shells in its gut using 3D micro-CT imaging. The species is the first snail-eating frog known from India and represents the first report of snail-eating behaviour in the frog family Megophryidae. The word 'tanogogo' for snails has also been adopted from the Apatani tribal language that is spoken in the region.

The Siang Horned Frog, Jingophrys siangensis, is named after the Siang region, while Jingophrys hrdy (Hrdy's Horned Frog) and Jingophrys wularsoni (WuLarson's Horned Frog) were named after anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, medical professor Daniel Bruce Hrdy, and herpetologists Barbara Wu and Eric Larson at Harvard University in recognition of their contributions towards herpetological field research and the study of conservation biology.

The findings were confirmed through multiple lines of evidence, including DNA sequence-based molecular phylogenetic studies, detailed comparisons of external morphology and the distinctive mating calls produced by male frogs.

Sonali Garg, who led the research as a Biodiversity Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, said the findings exhibited how evolutionary processes could remain unnoticed in poorly studied groups without dedicated field and laboratory research.

Prof. S.D. Biju of the University of Delhi, who was also a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University during the study, said Arunachal Pradesh remained an understudied region with rich and endemic frog fauna. Some of the newly discovered species are highly secretive and occur in remote forests only during a short breeding season, underlining the need for further research into their biology and conservation requirements.