Overview
- Researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India described a new species, Limnonectes motijheel, in Namdapha Tiger Reserve in Arunachal Pradesh.
- Genetic tests and body measurements confirmed the frog as distinct from related species.
- The species builds cup-shaped mud nests under leaf litter, and males call from inside the nests with a distinctive “wooooak” in April and May.
- Current records place the frog only in Namdapha and nearby forests, and the team urges targeted, leaf-litter surveys to find more sites.
- The study also reports Limnonectes longchuanensis in India for the first time, raising the country’s known Limnonectes species to six.