Ghatixalus variabilis

The variably colored Ghat tree frog, green tree frog, Parker's bubble-nest frog, Parker's bush frog, Indian bubble-nest frog, spotted green tree frog, Zamorin tree frog, or Green frog of the Neelgherries  (Ghatixalus variabilis) is a frog.  It lives in India in the Western Ghat mountains, only north of the Palakkad Gap.

People see this frog in shola forests high in the hills and sometimes on tea or cardamom farms in between.  People have only seen them in or near mountain streams. They sometimes sit on the ground and sometimes on grass and sometimes in holes next to the streams. People have seen this frog between 925 and 2630 meters above sea level.

The female frog makes a nest out of foam hanging over the stream and lays the eggs in the foam. The eggs hatch into tadpoles that fall into the stream.that live in rocky streams where the water flows fast. The tadpoles have large suckers on their mouths that they use to hold onto the rocks and keep still in the fast water.

Scientists believe this frog is in danger of dying out because it lives in such a small place. Human beings have cut down the trees in the forests where it lived.  The forests that are still there have farms in between, and the frogs cannot move from one forest to another.  This frog is also in danger because the Nilgiri Hills are hotter than they were. This has changed the way the water sits below the ground. That has made it easier for new kinds of trees that people to the area, for example eucalyptus, lantana, acacia, wattle, and pinewoods, to grow where the shola forests were. Scientists say climate change is a threat to this frog.

References

Category:Frogs of Asia