Last night along with my sister Sahar and cousin Aysha, I made a trip to Kalpetta, Wayanad, Kerala... armed with flash torches, cameras and flash guns. We went to meet a great man - Dr Anil Zacharaiah - to put it simply he is a Messiah to the frogs of the Western Ghats!
Around his humble home the amazing veterinary doctor duo ( Dr Anil and his wife) have been turning a small coffee plantation into a forest like patch which has been adopted by a good variety of frogs as their refuge from the ever dwindling forests around Kalpetta.
We reached his home after dark at around 7:30pm and he took us straight to his backyard forest which was alive with the croaking of frogs. I was there to see one particular species of frog - the
Small Tree Frog (
Rhacophorus lateralis) - which is supposedly uncommon but the moment we stepped into his
backyard we were straight away able to spot these tiny tree frogs
everywhere! In fact in the fist 10 mins he showed us 3 different species
of tree frogs!
Besides these we could also hear a few species of Bush frogs and even a Canopy frog but unfortunately couldn't spot them.
Here's a few photos of the amazing Rhacophorus lateralis that he showed us:
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| Rhacophorus lateralis |
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| Rhacophorus lateralis |
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| Rhacophorus lateralis on coffee beans |
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| Rhacophorus lateralis |
While I clicked my heart full of photos Dr Anil was kind enough to
explain some of the features and habits of these beautiful creatures, he
even explained their life cycles, showed us their unique nesting behavior (see below image of eggs in a folded leaf - apparently this is the only frog in Asia to do so) and pointed out at tadpoles in various stages of growth.
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| A female Rhacophorus lateralis waiting for the male (seen on the twig) on a strategic leaf above a small pond |
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| Rhacophorus lateralis eggs |
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| Male Rhacophorus lateralis |
And here's a few photos of the other Rhacophorus we saw, the beautiful - Rhacophorus malabaricus:
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| Rhacophorus malabaricu |
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| Check out the amazing red webbing on the hind feet of the Rhacophorus malabaricu |
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| Rhacophorus malabaricu |
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| Rhacophorus malabaricu |
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| Rhacophorus malabaricu |
And if showing us the frogs and all the on field
knowledge sharing wasn't enough he also ran us thru a slide show from
his extensive collections of Western Ghat frog species photos on his
laptop while we sipped on some coffee in his house! He is planning to
use these photos in his upcoming book on the 'Frogs of Kerala' (the
book's first edition will only be in Malayalam language and is being
published by the Malabar Natural History Society) He has been
researching frog for a long time now and has been writing this book for
the past 4 years and it's due to be published by the end of this year.
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| Sri Lankan Painted Frog (Kaloula taprobanica) |
Many many thanks Dr Anil for an unforgettable night with the frogs and to Dr Jaffer for having led me to this gold mine!!! :-D
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