For all those, who enjoy Queen's music.
The frogs, of the newly found genera belonging to tree frog family ‘Rhacophoridae', were discovered in highly threatened fresh water swamp eco systems, which are unique to the mountain range.
The frogs discovered are named after two remarkable personalities who had an association with this landscape. One genus is named ‘Beddomixalus’ after colonel Richard Henry Beddome. He was a gifted polymath of the colonial era, who made extraordinary contributions to the understanding to the natural history of the sub-continent while serving as the Chief Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency. His works were the first detailed forays towards a systematic and through understanding of the amphibian diversity of the Western Ghats.
The other genus has been christened ‘Mercurana’ to commemorate Freddie Mercury, late iconic lead singer of the British rock band Queen. Mercury (his pen name) was of Indian Parsi origin and had spent major part of his childhood in India in Panchagni, located in the northern part of the mountain range, where the frog now bearing his name has been discovered.
While the ‘Beddomixalus bijui’ was found in the swamp forests of the Anamalai and high ranges of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, ‘Mercurana myristicapalustris,’ is restricted to highly fragmented and threatened low land ‘Myristica’ swamp forests in the foothills of the Agastyamalai hills in Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts.
- The Hindu, April 18, 2013.
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