Introduction
India has rich bio-diverse regions compared to other countries in the world. There are different biomes or ecosystems of the desert, high mountains, highlands, tropical and temperate forests, swamplands, plains, grasslands, areas surrounding rivers. India has 4 biodiversity hotspots that are The Himalayas, the Western Ghats, the Indo-Burma region and a group of islands, these hotspots are home to various endemic species. India is one of the megadiverse countries which has been home to numerous species which ranges as 7.6% of all mammalian, 12.6% of all avian, 6.2% of all reptilian, 4.4% of all amphibian, 11.7% of fishes and 6.0% of all flowering plant species.
Overview
The Western Ghats are a sequence of hills that run along the western edge of peninsular India. In the Western Ghats, it has high species diversity and is endemic to many species. Nearly 77% of the amphibian’s species are found in these Ghats and can’t be found anywhere else.
Recently a new frog species was discovered from team of researchers from Delhi University and they named if after former Vice-Chancellor Professor Deepak Pental. His name was named to frog in appreciation of his remarkable support and encouragement for setting up of the systematics lab at the university, through this lab many research were conducted and which lead to the discovery and report of nearly one-fourth of all known Indian amphibians. Minerva pentali was a new name given to frog and it is endemic only to the southern Western Ghats of India.
The study was done on a wide-ranging considerably large and common confusing group of Indian frogs belonging to the genus Minerva, common name-Minervaryan frogs, and the study was carried out for a period of nearly 10 years by researchers of Delhi University. Newly discovered species were identified based on different criteria like external morphology, DNA of species and calling pattern.
RESEARCH FINDINGS
The frog was discovered from different vegetation at multiple localities of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Researching and survey of this study were carried out during Monsoon Season. The frog discovered was also the smallest known Minervaryan frog so the researchers outlooked into this matter.
The research and study was done by Professor SD Biju, head of the department of environmental studies at Delhi University and a postdoctoral researcher at Delhi University Sonali Garg both of them discovered a new species of frog which belongs to the family Dicroglossidae
Researcher findings were published in the International journal Asian Herpetological Research under titled ‘DNA Barcoding and Systematic Review of Minervaryan Frogs (Dicroglossidae: Minervarya) of Peninsular India: Resolution of a taxonomic conundrum with a description of a new species’ published in June 2021 and its research was funded by Delhi University, Government of India’s department of science and technology and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund from the US and Global Wildlife Conservation at the US.
Conclusion
India is home to many species and has a different ecosystems, Biodiversity and hotspots with endemic species. Government of India should fund and allow many environmentalists and ecologist to discover wide range of undiscovered endemic species from which we can conserve any species going into endangered species. With the study we can know the ecosystem of wildlife and we can restore which are in endangered lists.