Lateritic plateaus of India are geographically and ecologically complex plateaus that support endemic flora and fauna. However, despite their uniqueness they are termed as “wastelands”. The plateaus’ overall treeless structure makes them susceptible to developmental activities like infrastructure growth, waste dumping, and urbanization. This paper presents a list of anurans compiled from surveys carried out in the years between 2016 and 2018 in the town of Manipal, a predominant lateritic landscape on the west coast of India. The list comprises of 19 species belonging to five different families, includes notes on microhabitat structure and associated species. We also present descriptions of malformed frogs recorded during the surveys. The growing demands for urbanization, presence of malformed frogs, and habitat complexities that support species densities highlight the need to re-evaluate our understanding towards these plateaus. We express our concern towards the need for conservation of these lesser known amphibian habitats.  

Abstract:We present an annotated list of amphibians for the state of Sikkim, India. Data were obtained through literature reviews, fieldwork and review of museum collections. Forty-four species of amphibians belonging to 20 genera in eight families and three orders have been reported in Sikkim from 1864 to 2015. During our fieldwork, we recorded 23 species, of which two are new records for the state.

The biota of the Indian subcontinent has assembled during various points of the history of its continental drift: some when it was still a part of Gondwanaland and subsequently dispersed 'out-of-India' and some dispersed 'into-India' after it collided with Asia. However, the relative contribution of these connection to the current biotic assembly of the subcontinent is still under-explored. We aimed to understand the relative importance of these various routes of biotic assembly in India through studying the historical biogeography of tropical Old World freshwater snail genus Pila. We reconstructed a near-complete phylogeny of Ampullariidae including all the described Pila species from India and published sequences of Ampullariids from all over the world from two mitochondrial and two nuclear markers. Thereafter molecular dating and ancestral area reconstruction analyses were carried out in order to ascertain the time frame and route of colonization of India. The results suggest that Pila dispersed into India as well as other parts of tropical Asia from Africa after both India and Africa collided with Eurasia. Furthermore, multiple dispersals have taken place between Southeast Asia and India. The findings consolidate the rapidly building evidence that much of the current assemblage of biota actually dispersed into-India after it collided with Asia.