Purple Frog

For: Preliminary
Topics covered: About Purple Frog, Related Myth, Western Ghats, Supercontinent Gondwana

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News Flash

Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis) is set to be crowned Kerala’s state amphibian. It is also believed that Purple frog have co-existed with dinosaurs.

The proposal for this is being mooted by Kerela’s leading Herpetologists (a specialist in study of reptiles and amphibians).

 

Purple Frog

• Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, which lives almost its entire life in underground tunnels, comes out to the surface for a single day in a year to breed.
• It is also known as Maveli frog or Pignose Frog.
• It’s a unique species.
• It’s endemic to the parts of the southern Western Ghats (south of the Palghat Gap- a pass which is located between Nilgiri Hills to north and Anaimalai Hills to south) and cannot be found anywhere else.
• The frog has shiny, purple skin, a light blue ring around its eyes, and a pointy pig-nose.
• It has small eyes, a long snout, and short limbs equipped with hardened ‘spades’.

 

Breeding style and diet

• The Purple frog feeds mostly on soil-mites, ants and termites using its fluted tongue.
• The male and female frogs mate underground and once in a year, they come out on the surface to lay thousands of eggs near seasonal streams in the months of May-June.
• The tadpoles that emerge out of the eggs are known to spend up to 120 days in the open before they metamorphose into frogs and make their journey into subterranean soil where they will live almost permanently.

 

Mythology

• According to mythology, Mahabali, or Maveli, was a benevolent asura king who ruled over the region of Kerala but was banished into the netherworld by Lord Vishnu in order to appease the gods.
• But Maveli was granted one wish: he could return to Kerala for a single day and meet his subjects.
• This day in Kerala came to be celebrated as ‘Thiruvonam’, the most auspicious day of Onam when people would greet their old king.
• Quite similar to the lore of King Maveli, researchers have found that the Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis), which lives almost its entire life in underground tunnels, comes out to the surface for a single day in a year to breed.

 

Western Ghats

The fragile Western Ghats, classified as a biodiversity hotspot and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to thousands of flora and fauna species that are not found anywhere else.

 

Background

• The species should be rightly called a ‘living fossil’ as it’s evolutionary roots suggest it could have shared space with dinosaurs going back almost 70 million years ago.
• Few Years back, the frog’s closest relatives were found in Seychelles, an island in the Indian Ocean off East Africa.
• This discovery led many to ask whether the species could indeed be living proof of the theory of Gondwanaland.
• It is thought the two families shared a common ancestor that was subsequently isolated on different landmasses following the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana.

 

Gondwana

Gondwana was an ancient supercontinent that broke up about 180 million years ago. The continent eventually split into landmasses we recognize today: Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica, the Indian subcontinent and the Arabian Peninsula.

The name Gondwanaland was coined by the Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in reference to Upper Paleozoic and Mesozoic formations in the Gondwana region of central India, which are similar to formations of the same age on Southern Hemisphere continents.

 

Source: Indian Express

 

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