Rhacophorus pseudomalabaricus

The Anaimalai flying frog or false Malabar gliding frog (Rhacophorus verrucopus) is a frog.  It lives in the Anamalai Hills in India. Scientists have seen it between 955 and 1640 meters above sea level.

Appearance

The adult male frog is 43.6 – 50.5 mm long from nose to rear end and the adult female can be 66.8 mm long. All four legs are long and it has disks on its toes for climbing trees. The pupil in the eye goes up and down and opens side to side.  The eardrum is hard to see.

R. pseudomalabaricus is the only frog in Rhacophorus that looks like a leaf: The skin of the frog's back and the tops of its legs are green with white spots. Sometimes there are black lines on its back and legs. Some frogs have clear stripes that look like the veins in leaves. Scientists think this helps the frog hide from animals that want to eat it. Adult frogs have thick green lines on their legs. The sides of the frog's body and legs are yellow-white in color. The ends of the toes are yellow-orange in color. The webbed skin between the toes is orange or red-orange in color.

Home

This frog lives in tropical evergreen forests: the trees have broad leaves and do not have pine needles, but the leaves do not fall off in the winter because the place stays warm all year.

The frog lives in the Anaimalai Hills. People also call them the Elephant Hills on one side and the Cardamom Hills on the other side. This frog lives higher than 955 meters above sea level but lower than 1640 meters above sea level. Scientists say that the easiest way to tell R. pseudomalabaricus apart from R. malabaricus is to look at where the frog is: If the frog is too close to sea level, it is probably R. malabaricus, and if it is high up in the hills, it is probably R. pseudomalabaricus.

Life cycle

The frogs mate after the monsoon rains stop, from June to October. The male frog sings for the female frog: "trrr tik tik tik tik trrrr." The female frog makes a nest out of foam from her rear end. She stirs the foam with her back legs to make bubbles. The male frog holds on to her. She lays her eggs in the foam. Then the male frog puts sperm in the foam. The frogs stick together for an hour. Then the male frog lets go.  Then the female frog covers the foam with leaves or grass. She uses her front legs to do this.

The female frog makes the nest on the ground or as high as 9 meters in the air. She builds the nest over water. When the eggs hatch, the tadpoles fall into the water.

Sometimes primates find the nest and eat the eggs. Birds and primates can both eat the adult frog.

Threats

Human beings in India do not like this frog. Cardamom spice farmers think the frog eats the fruit that they grow.  Some local people also think that the frog is a bad omen, which means that bad luck follows the frog. Farmers pay people to catch and kill this frog.

There are fewer of this frog than there were in the past. This is because human beings change the places where the frog lives. Humans cut down trees for wood to build with and to make places for animals to eat grass. Chemicals that farmers use to make plants grow, chemicals that kill insects, and pollution can also kill this frog. Some people also catch this frog to sell it as a pet. Other people hit the frog with cars.

Scientists do not know whether the fungal disease chytridiomycosis can kill this frog.

References

Category:Frogs of Asia