Updated Checklist of Amphibians of India released

An updated Checklist of Amphibians of India was released on the Mhadei Research Center website today by a team of research scientists.

The team comprising of Dr. K P Dinesh from Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Mr  C Radhakrishnan retired Scientist of  Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Dr B.H. Channakeshavamurthy from the Western Ghats Regional Centre (WGRC), Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), Kerala, and Nirmal U Kulkarni from the Mhadei Research Centre, Goa.

The present checklist is updated with all species names available till January 2015 and enlists 382 species of amphibians from India, including 32 species listed recently from Goa that are marked with # and 217 species from the Western Ghats of India that are marked with an asterix (*).

The authors have expressed gladness for the release of this updated Checklist and hope that the downloadable version will help naturalists, wildlife enthusiasts, students of herpetology as well the general public interested in amphibians.

 The Checklist has been updated till January 2015 and will be regularly updated at periodic intervals according to the need of new advances in amphibian studies as well as additions of new descriptions of species.

The checklist is available on http://mhadeiresearchcenter.org/resources as a free download. The website address of the Mhadei research center is www.mhadeiresearchcenter.org

The Mhadei Research Center has been established to provide a platform for wildlife researchers to document and study the biodiversity of the Mhadei Bio region that encompasses the states of Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Established on the firm foundations of carrying out field projects related to conservation biology and data collection, the Center is also being developed as a repository of scientific knowledge on the Bio region and a database source on the Northern Western Ghats that are also known as the Sahyadris.

It also facilitates ecology studies and training for students of wildlife sciences on a collaborative basis in co ordination with official agencies including the Indian Institute of Science, the Zoological Survey of India, the Botanical Survey of India, the Madras Crocodile Bank trust and Center for Herpetology, the Wildlife Conservation Society-India program and the Bombay Natural History Society amongst others.

For details about the Checklist and the Mhadei Research Center contact-

Nirmal U Kulkarni – ophidian_nirmal@yahoo.co.in