New species of frog found in Eravikulam National Park

NEW DELHI: Scientists have discovered a new bright reddish-orange-coloured frog with multiple glands and extremely short limbs from the highest mountain peak of the Western Ghats.

The newly discovered species, located in the Eravikulam National Park, is restricted to less than three sq. km on the summit of Anamudi and deserves immediate conservation priority, scientists said in the latest edition of Current Science.

“Despite intensive searches in a suitable habitat close to the type locality, we were unable to locate this species in any other place,” said the team — comprising S.D. Biju of Delhi University and Franky Bossuyt of the Free University of Brussels — which has assigned the frog the name Raorchestes resplendens.

The other members of the team include Yogesh Shouche of the National Centre for Cell Science, Pune, Alain Dubois of the France-based Reptiles et Amphibians, and S. Dutta from North Orissa University.

“One of the most striking features of the frog is the presence of numerous macroglands, which is absent in all species of Philautus, Pseudophilatus and Raorchestes presently known and thus are derived characters,” the scientists said.

The first part of the generic name of this relative of the shrub frogs honours Professor C.R. Narayan Rao (1882-1960) for his contributions to the study of amphibians. Professor Rao taught zoology at Central College here.

The latter part of the name Raorchestes is based on the first-ever generic name coined for frogs — Orchestes.

The scientists found that the female buried eggs under the moss-covered forest floor, deep inside the base of bamboo clumps. Later, they observed the eggs hatching from what looked like glass bubbles in their lab.

The observations have also suggested that the female may mate with multiple males or breed more than once in a single season. “The short limbs have resulted in a more pronounced crawling behaviour in this species compared to its congeners,” the researchers added.

Dr. Bossuyt and Professor Biju previously discovered a purple frog with a bulbous body and pointy snout in the peaks of the Western Ghats. They analysed the amphibian's DNA and demonstrated that its closest living relatives were the so-called ‘Sooglossids frogs' of the Seychelles.

The species, dubbed Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, diverged from the Sooglossids about 130 million years ago, prior to the break-up of India and the Seychelles around 65 million years ago.

Source: Thursday, May 06, 2010

All set for source-level garbage segregation

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Mayor C. Jayan Babu said here on Monday that the City Corporation would soon insist on source-level segregation of garbage for the efficient implementation of the Capital City, Clean City project.

Under the pilot project, households in the wards of Muttada, Nanthancode, Kesavadasapuram, Kowdiar and Kuravankonam will be the first to start segregating biodegradable and non-biodegradable garbage in green and white buckets.

The plastic waste in white buckets will be collected once a week and bottles, bulbs and electronic waste once a month.

At a press conference, Mr. Jayan Babu said the Corporation had directed the Kudumbasree Clean Well Unit workers to collect only segregated garbage from households under the project.

“Today, the Corporation Council passed the bylaws for the Capital City, Clean City project. The bylaws, approved by the government, cover all aspects of solid-waste management. From now, we will lay special emphasis on source-level segregation of garbage,” he said.

The Mayor said the bylaws stipulated self-contained solid-waste management mechanisms for apartment complexes. The apartment complexes, whether coming up new or already existing, would have to install solid-waste management systems.

Garbage transport

He said the Corporation had procured five airtight vehicles, each priced at Rs.18 lakh, for transporting garbage to the solid-waste management plant at Vilappilsala. Five more of them would be bought.

“Since it is impossible to transport garbage in the morning hours, these vehicles will have to be parked somewhere during the day. We are trying to identify places where this will not cause much disturbance to the public. We are planning to have service-stations-cum-workshops for parking and servicing these vehicles,” he said.

Deputy Mayor V. Jayaprakash said the Corporation was introducing the concept of household-level vermi-compost pits and biogas plants for processing biodegradable waste in houses with sufficient land.

Source: The Hindu, Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Mass hatching of Olive Ridley eggs begins

RUSHIKULYA ROOKERY (ORISSA): Mass hatching of Olive Ridley turtle eggs has begun at this major nesting site under the shroud of environmental degradation caused by oil spill from a ship recently.

The mass hatching, which started on Saturday night, is expected to continue for next two to three days.

Berhampur Divisional Forest Officer Ajay Kumar Jena, who is monitoring the protection of the hatchlings till Monday morning, said eggs in around 30,000 nests on the coast had hatched.

Around 1,55,000 Olive Ridleys nested along the coastline near the Rushikulya Rookery in March and the eggs have started hatching after 45 days. More than 100 eggs were laid into every nest. On an average, however, around 80 hatchlings came out of each nest, Mr. Jena said.

Nearly 24,00,000 hatchlings had entered the sea and lakhs will follow in the coming days.

The mortality of the hatchlings is usually quite high. Experts say only one in a 1,000 survives to become an adult. Environmental activists like Soumya Tripathy of Greenpeace feel the oil spill that occurred on April 13 may increase the mortality of the hatchlings this year.

Mr. Jena said though the surface of the sea near the nesting site was monitored, no residue of the oil spill was found. However, marine scientist and Vice-Chancellor of Berhampur University Bijay Kumar Sahu said the oil spill would have had be a serious impact on the marine flora and fauna near the rookery, especially on plankton and small organisms that were the food of the turtle hatchlings.

Mr. Sahu and Mr. Tripathy said there was immediate need for a detailed multi-discipline faculty study on the long-term impact of the oil spill on the marine environment.

As part of measures to protect the hatchlings, the bright lights of the industrial units and townships near the area have been ordered to be shut down during the hatching period. The hatchlings get attracted to light sources. Nylon nets were in place over a distance of three km at the nesting beach to stop hatchlings from straying towards the land.

Volunteers of the Rushikulya Sea Turtle Protection Committee — an organisation comprising people from villages near the rookery involved in turtle protection — collected stray hatchlings and released them into the sea.

Source: The Hindu, Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Lok Sabha passes Green Tribunal Bill

NEW DELHI: The Lok Sabha on Friday adopted the National Green Tribunal (NGT) Bill, 2009. It envisages the setting up of a national tribunal, a judicial body exclusively to deal with environmental laws and to provide citizens a right to environment.

The main Bench of the tribunal will be set up in Bhopal, “the site of humanity's one of the worst industrial tragedies.” This way the government and Parliament could show some sensitivity to the people of Bhopal, said Minister of State for Environment and Forests Jairam Ramesh, replying to a debate.

The Tribunal would have four circuit Benches. It would deal with all environmental laws on air and water pollution, the Environment Protection Act, the Forest Conservation Act and the Biodiversity Act. With this effort, India would join Australia and New Zealand, which have such specialised environment tribunals.

Mr. Ramesh said a Bill to set up the National Environment Protection Authority would be introduced in the monsoon session. It would monitor the implementation of environment laws.

The Tribunal members would be chosen by a committee.

Source: The Hindu, Saturday, May 01, 2010