PANAJI
A comprehensive Checklist of Indian Amphibians has been updated and launched on the Zoological Survey of India website. The latest checklist has been uploaded on February 10 with the newly proposed common names for the country species and IUCN conservation status.Herpetologist Nirmal U Kulkarni from the Mhadei Research Centre (Goa) is among the compilers of the checklist along with eminent research scientists across India “ Dr KP Dinesh from the Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Centre, Pune, Dr C Radhakrishnan from Calicut, Dr BH Channakeshavamurthy from ZSI, Calicut and P Deepak from Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru.
Since 2009, Scientists of the Zoological Survey of India in collaboration with other Indian institutes have been updating the Indian amphibian checklist periodically. In 2009 the total number of Indian amphibian species recorded in the checklist was 284 while now, after a decade the checklist records 454 species (which is more than a 150% upsurge in documentation in one decade).
The updated checklist includes systematic classification with scientifically updated species names and year of discovery with their IUCN Red List conservation status, available till January 2023. Additionally, common names have been proposed from the Indian amphibian perspective to facilitate the easy identification of the amphibian species locally by layman.
Among the amphibians listed, 21 species are treated as critically endangered and 41 species as endangered. It highlights 22% of amphibians as data-deficient species and about 32% as not assessed as per Red List conservation status of IUCN. It is high time to assess the IUCN conservation status for the Indian 'Data Deficient 22% (99 species) and ‘Not Assessed’ 32% (145 species) category of amphibians based on species-specific field explorations.
This updated comprehensive checklist will help students of Herpetology, researchers and conservation scientists as well as policy-makers to understand the diversity of Indian amphibians and their up-to-date scientific nomenclature as well as common name.
Link: https://zsi.gov.in/WriteReadData/userfiles/file/Checklist/Amphibia_2023.pdf
