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Scientists Discover 12 New Frog Species in India

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Scientists Discover 12 New Frog Species in India Monday 19th September, 2011 7 The Island Home News Emergency Numbers He stole women’s Essential Services National Help Desk 118 Electricity Breakdown Service (CEB) Conman with ‘patient’ caught underwear! Colombo City (1 - 15) (01 1) 249 8498 Water Breakdown Service cting on a tip-off, the (Colombo City) (011) 267 2222 Kandy police on (011) 267 4444 (011) 537 4375 Friday Colombo Municipal Council (011) 4722022 Hot LIne 110 A Public Transport Serv ice arrested a man Central Bus Stand-Pettah (011) 232 9606 who had been Private Bus Stand-Pettah (011) 586 5904 collecting Colombo Fort Railway Inquiries (011) 243 4215 money from General Post Office Colombo (011) 232 6203 the public Emergency Services claiming that Thieving Fire Service (Colombo) (011) 242 2222, 11 0 his sister was suf- Police Emergency Service 119 fering from Police Emergency (Colombo) (011) 243 3333 Bomb Disposal (Army Squad) (011) 243 4251 leukemia. sibling Accident Service (General Hospitals) (011) 269 1111 Investigations revealed makes off with washed he Maharagama underwear hung out to dry Ambulance Services that the claims were bogus police on Friday on clothes lines. St. Johns (011) 243 7744 and the suspect had cheated Tarrested a man who Following his arrest the Sri Lanka Red Cross (011) 555 5505 hundreds of people in this had been stealing women’s man had led the police to a Mobile (077) 299 2312 underwear from clothes manner. place where he had kept lines in the area. the stolen undergarments. Contact Norman “He carries a file containing a The police said that they The police say the sus- Tel : 2497500/0718442666 photograph of a young woman claim- had received several com- pect would be produced ing that she is his sister and is armed with letters issued to plaints from residents in before the Homagama Fax: 2497543 the area about the presence him by prominent and influential persons including med- Magistrate once the inter- Email: [email protected] of the man who enters the rogation is complete. ical experts, claiming that the person in the photograph was gardens of houses and known to them and requesting the public to help since she needs urgent medical treatment overseas,” an officer said. But they proved to be bogus documents and when contact- ed, persons whose names were in the letters denied issuing cting on a complaint, the Grandpass Police SI clobbers Sergeantbourhood. When the sergeant vis- the letters in question. police on Friday arrested a youth who division. ited the SI’s house they had had an senior police officer in Later the man confessed that the woman in the photo- is alleged to have stolen a gold necklace Investigations revealed that the argument and the latter had A Anuradhapura has initiated graph was his former wife and they are now divorced. belonging to his sister, pawned it and sergeant frequently visited the res- assaulted the former causing Aan inquiry into a fight idence of the sub inspector and injuries. When the police visited the woman at her residence, she obtained Rs 25,000. The suspect had spent a lot of money on which erupted between a sub had developed an illicit relation- admitted that she had been married to the suspect and said inspector and a sergeant attached clothes and friends, investigations revealed, ship with a woman in the neigh- to two police stations in the same that she is not suffering from any serious ailment. the police said. The suspect was produced before the Kandy Magistrate and remanded till September 28. whose croak sounds more like a cat’s call, the jog night Many of the newly found frogs in India are rare and frog, unique in that both the males and females watch Scientists discover 12 neware living in justfrog a single area, so they species will need rigor- over the eggs, andin the Wayanad India night frog, which grows Years of to about the size of a baseball or cricket ball. “It’s September 17, 2011: NEW DELHI — ous habitat protection, Biju told The Associated Press almost like a monster in the forest floor, a huge animal combing tropical mountain forests, shining flashlights on Saturday.“Unfortunately in India, conservation has basically focused on the two most charismatic animals for a frog, leaping from one rock to another,” Biju said. under rocks and listening for croaks in the night have Three other species were rediscovered, including the paid off for a team of Indian scientists which has dis- — the elephant and the tiger. For amphibians there is little interest, little funding, and frog research is not Coorg night frog described 91 years ago, after scientists covered 12 new frog species plus three others thought to “had completely ignored these animals, thinking they have been extinct. easy.” Night frogs are extremely hard to find, coming out were lost.” It’s a discovery the team hopes will bring attention to The discoveries — published in the latest issue of India’s amphibians and their role in gauging the health only at dark and during the monsoon season, living either in fast-flowing streams or on moist forest ground. international taxonomy journal Zootaxa — bring the of the environment. known number of frogs in India to 336. Biju estimated Worldwide, 32 percent of the world’s known amphib- Biju said he and his student researchers had to sit in dark, damp forests listening for frog sounds and shining this was only around half of what is in the wild, and ian species are threatened with extinction, largely said none of India’s amphibians are yet being studied because of habitat loss or pollution, according to the flashlights under rocks and across riverbeds. They con- firmed the new species by description as well as genet- for biological compounds that could be of further use in group Global Wildlife Conservation. science. “Frogs are extremely important indicators not just ics. The 12 new species include the meowing night frog, of climate change, but also pollutants in the environ- GEMBA: A jog night frog sits in the forests of the ment,” said the project’s lead scientist, biologist Western Ghats in Karnataka, India. Sathyabhama Das Biju of the University of Delhi..
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