The News
- Using genetic barcoding, a team of scientists has identified three frog species, which were not yet recorded in India.
Key Results
- India is home to three narrow-mouthed frogs till now known to be found in other South Asian countries.
- The number of ornate narrow-mouthed frogs has started dwindling in India.
Three new species
Nilphamari narrow-mouthed frog
- Nocturnal
- Earlier known to be found only in Bangladesh and Nepal.
- Discovered in
- Western Ghats (Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra)
- Eastern Ghats (Andhra Pradesh and Odisha)
- Central, east and northeastern India.
Mukhlesur’s narrow-mouthed frog
- Earlier known to be seen in Bangladesh and other south Asian countries.
- Reported from Mizoram
Mymensingh narrow-mouthed frogs
- Most narrow-mouthed frogs seen in northeastern India are Mymensingh narrow-mouthed frogs.
Dwindling numbers of ornate narrow-mouthed frog
- Ornate narrow-mouthed frog is found only in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.
- IUCN currently classifies the species as “Least Concern”.
- However the study reveals that the species could be dwindling and requires conservation attention.
DNA Barcode
- An organism’s DNA carries the detailed instructions to build an organism.
- A gene is a sequence of bases in a DNA molecule that carries the information necessary for producing a protein.
- Just as a book can be viewed as a sequence of letters, a molecule of DNA can be viewed as a sequence of bases.
- The sequence in which bases appear in a molecule of an organism’s DNA makes up a “code” of that organism.
- This ‘code’ varies significantly in their number and ‘makeup’ from species to species.
- Within the species, more than 99.9% of the sequences of two individuals are the same.
- However since in a genome there are about three billion base pairs, even a tenth of a percent difference translates to about three million base-pair differences.
- These differences are responsible different individuals within the species.
