Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Amphibian fauna of Loktak lake, Manipur, India with ten new records for the state

2007; Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society; Volume: 22; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.11609/jott.zpj.1557.2688-90

0973-2551

Banita Ningombam, Sabitry Bordoloi,

Lepidoptera: Biology and Taxonomy

Manipur is located between 23 0 51'-25 0 41'N & 93 0 2 ' -94 0 47 ' E (altitude ranging between 750 and 2020m) in the northeastern part of the country, bordering Myanmar for about 352km in the east and the south.Manipur shares borders with the states of Nagaland, Assam and Mizoram.The Loktak lake is surrounded by hills on all sides that run in a north-south direction forming parallel folds with altitudes varying from 850m to 3000m above mean sea level.Manipur has a vast forest area constituting 68% of the total geographic area of the state.Its vegetation ranges from tropical evergreen to temperate evergreen with tropical moist deciduous and dry temperate coniferous trees of subtropical forest.Loktak lake is the largest freshwater lake in northeastern India.This has been declared as a Ramsar Site (No. 463 declared on 16 th June, 1993).It is situated between 24 0 25'-24 0 42'N & 93 0 46' -93 0 55'E at an altitude of 750m.The lake is famous for its floating mats of vegetation locally called phumdis.These support a large variety of flora and fauna, the most well known and threatened Manipur Brow-antlered Deer or Sangai.The Keibul Lamjao National Park (declared in 1977) is a part of the Loktak lake area.The present survey of amphibian fauna was carried out in different parts of Loktak lake and its vicinity (Fig. 1).The survey was conducted for a period of one year (August 2004-July 2005) covering all the breeding seasons and different microhabitats.A hill stream near loktak hydro-electric project was also surveyed.Publications on amphibian fauna of Manipur are very few, with some literature available for northeastern India in general with mention of a few species from Manipur.Chanda (1994) reported 11 amphibian species from Manipur; Keising (2001) recorded the Himalayan Newt Tylototriton verrucosus from Ukhrul district; Chanda (2002) recorded 14 species; Sen (2004) in her compilation listed 17 species; and Sarkar et al. (2005) listed 14 species from the state.