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Records of Painted Frog (Kaloula pulchra) from Anand and Surat, Gujarat State

2004; Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society; Volume: 19; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.11609/jott.zpj.1035.1444

0973-2551

Raju Vyas, B M Parasharya,

Species Distribution and Climate Change

a colourful frog was found in the kitchen garden at the staff residence of the Agricultural University Campus, Anand, Gujarat.It was a small sized frog with squat round body, and, short and thick hind feet.Body colour was dark gray with red colour lateral stripes on both sides.Fingers were long without webs and tips were swollen as adhesive pads.Belly was light gray with black colour.The sub-articular tubercles were distinct and present on fingers and toes.Shovelshaped metatarsal tubercles were present, inner larger than the outer ones.Tibio-tarsal articulation reached the shoulder when hind limbs were extended and bent.The frog was identified as a Painted Frog (Kaloula pulchra) after carefully examining it with the help of the field guide of Daniel (1963aDaniel ( ,b, 1975)).The first author also collected a specimen of the species from Ratanmahal Wildlife Sanctuary, Panchmahal District (now Dahod Dist.) during a herpetofauna survey.Both the specimens are deposited in museum of Bombay Natural History Society, Mumbai (BNHS 4187 and 4186, respectively) and their morphometric measurements are given in Table 1.Recently the first author received a colour photograph of a frog from Mr. Snehal S. Patel (President, Surat Nature Club, Surat) for identification.The photograph (Fig. 1 w ) was identified to be that of Kaloula pulchra and was recorded outside Surat City.The Painted Frog (Kaloula pulchra) belongs to the family Microhylidae and, is widely distributed in Peninsular India and Sri Lanka.In India this species is distributed in West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu (Dutta, 1997).Also, this species is reported from two different Protected Areas of Gujarat State.Naik et al. (1993) reported this species from Mal-Samot area of Shoolpaneswar Wildlife Sanctuary, Bharuch District while Vyas &Patel (1994) andSingh et al. (2002) recorded the species from Ratanmahal Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat.Present records of the species from Anand Town, Anand District and Surat City, Surat District show that the species is widely distributed in South and Central Gujarat.