♦ Indian scientists have found two new slender-armed frogs from their secretive habitats in Arunachal Pradesh. One of the species has been named after Kerala journalist E Somanath, who passed away in 2022. The new species, ‘Soman’s Slender Arm Frog’ (Leptobrachium soman), was discovered from Tiwarigaon in Arunachal Pradesh.

♦ The other species, ‘Mechuka Slender Arm Frog’ (Leptobrachium mechuka), was also found in the evergreen forests and adjacent grassland. This species is named after Mechuka, a small town in Arunachal Pradesh, where it was first collected.

♦ The two new species were discovered by a Delhi University team led by Professor Biju as part of the PhD research of his student, Akalabya.

♦ Leptobrachium somani is a small-sized frog, measuring approximately 55 mm in length, with a uniformly greyish-brown body marked by irregular light-grey patterns and distinctive silver-grey to light-blue eyes.

♦ The second new species, Mechuka Slender Arm Frog (Leptobrachium mechuka), is a small-sized frog measuring about 60 mm in length.

♦ Brahmaputra river acted as the biogeographical barrier for these frogs aiding species diversification. 

♦ Arunachal Pradesh is a part of the Himalaya biodiversity hotspot, one of the world’s most biologically rich regions, harbouring exceptional plant and animal diversity found nowhere else on Earth, including a wide variety of amphibians.

♦ Among these amphibians are members of the family Megophryidae, one of the most diverse frog families globally with 366 recognised species, including the Asian horned frogs.