Overview
- The new species, Amolops kamal (common name: Nagaland cascade frog), was formally described in May 2026 in the journal Records of the Zoological Survey of India by Bhaskar Saikia and colleagues.
- Specimens were first recorded by a six‑member Zoological Survey of India field team in hill streams near Singrep village in Kiphire district during surveys in August 2024.
- Detailed morphological study combined with molecular phylogenetic analysis showed the Kiphire specimens form a distinct evolutionary lineage within the Amolops indoburmanensis species complex.
- Those analyses also revealed that the name Amolops indoburmanensis covers multiple separate lineages (it is paraphyletic), prompting the split that produced A. kamal and indicating more cryptic species remain to be resolved.
- The discovery — named for Kamal Choudhury — highlights that fast‑flowing hill streams in Northeast India harbor understudied frog diversity and calls for wider molecular‑integrative surveys plus mapping and conservation assessments of these isolated populations.