New species of limbless lizard found in Orissa

 

Bhubaneswar, May 28 (PTI): A new speci of limbless lizard said to be new to science has been located by group of zoologists in Orissa.

“It is an important discovery and preliminary scientific study reveals that the lizard belongs to the genus sepsophis”, Prof Sushil Kumar Dutta of the North Orissa University, Baripada, said.

Dutta, who led a research team of ‘Vasundhara’, a policy analysis, research and action group, on a field study to the Khandadhar hills in Sundargarh district found the limbless lizard during a survey recently.

The lizard, which belonged to the family ‘scincidae’, is new to science and is an important discovery from the biogeographic point of view, Dutta said.

Another speci of the same genus had been reported in 1870 from the golconda hills in Andhra Pradesh after which this is the first time that this limbless lizard had been found and it bears significance from the biodiversity point of view, Dutta said.

“The new speci will be scientifically described at a later stage after accumulation of more scientific data”, Dutta said.

The other limbless lizards recorded from India were of the family ‘dibamidae’ which was found in South East Asia and Nicobar island, ‘anguidae’, recorded from North East India and South East India and the genus ‘barkudia’ (scincidae) discovered in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, he said.

The closest relatives of the new discovery are found in Sri Lanka and South Africa, Dutta said adding this finding was of bio-geographic importance as Sri Lanka and South Africa were also part of Gondwanaland like India.

The new-found 19 cm long lizard looks like a small snake and has lower eyelids, rudimentary ear opening and pectoral bone holes on its shoulders, he said.

It also had scales on both sides of the body, a prominent feature of lizards, he said.

The new speci was quite specialised and preferred to live in cool retreat, soft soil and below stones.

Like its relatives, it lived in forest zones with heavy canopy and could not live in degraded forests where the soil profile changed rapidly.

Vaccine may save frogs. (Article in Swedish.)

Vaccin kan rädda hotade grodor.

Forskare vid James Madison-universitetet i USA har hittat en bakterie som kan bekämpa dödliga svampangrepp hos grodor. Bakterien, som finns naturligt i skinnet hos vissa arter, klarar att hålla den fruktade svampinfektionen chytridomycosis stången.

;Närmare en tredjedel av alla jordens grodarter hotas i dag av utrotning och många arter har redan försvunnit. En viktig förklaring är att svampinfektion blivit allt vanligare, troligen som en följd av växthuseffekten.

I försök både i provrör och med riktiga groddjur visar forskarna att bakterien hjälper djuret att stå emot svampangreppet. De hoppas att det så småningom ska leda fram till metoder att vaccinera hotade grodarter mot svampinfektionen.

Resultaten presenterades under föreningen American society for microbiologys möte tidigare i veckan.

Från DN

Red-legged frogs get a leg up: Graniterock quarry boasts ponds to boost numbers

SANTA CRUZ — The green, sandy hills of Granite Rock Co.’s Wilder Quarry are filled with heavy mining equipment, man-made ponds and the bustling traffic of a commercial sand mining operation.

It seems an unlikely spot for a fragile, endangered species.

But the 370-acre quarry, which mines sand near Wilder Ranch State Park, has become a powerful breeding ground for the California red-legged frog. Since the site reopened in 1996, the company has mined the area under a federally required Habitat Conservation Plan, designed to minimize the impact on the free-roaming frog, and, hopefully, maintain its numbers.

“It’s definitely an important site,” said biologist Jacob Martin of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Ventura, which reviews the company’s activities.

The company trains its employees to check their equipment for the red-legged frogs, which often roam for miles. It has moved telephone lines underground to reduce resting areas for birds that might prey on the amphibians. But the biggest contribution, company officials said, is four breeding ponds in an 11-acre corner of the quarry that drains into Old Dairy Gulch.

“We figure we’re like an incubator,” Graniterock spokesman Jim West said of the lush, swimming pool-size ponds.

A nighttime flashlight survey of the ponds might produce 20 to 30 sets of eyes belonging to the endangered croakers.

But the red-legged frogs weren’t always doing so well in the area.

Even before the quarry temporarily closed in 1990, the frogs had been struggling to establish a toe hold in abandoned sediment ponds, which were designed to catch runoff from the exposed hills. The frogs had little cover from airborne predators, and the man-made ponds were unnaturally sloped like teacups, with shallow sides.

“They were almost barren of vegetation,” said Dana Bland, a biologist and consultant to Watsonville-based Graniterock.

The frogs prefer steep sides and hanging underwater greenery to hang their eggs. When the quarry reopened, Graniterock reshaped the three existing ponds, added another and planted vegetation along the edges.

But to make it a welcome habitat for the red-legged frogs, the company had to eliminate the competition: bullfrogs. A hardy, invasive species originally from the East Coast, bullfrogs compete with and often eat their red-legged cousins. The large frogs have no predators in California.

“It was funny, when we first went out there they showed me a bullfrog, and it was the size of a bunny rabbit,” West said. “I’d never seen a frog that big in my life. He’d just sit there in the middle of the pond and eat everything”

Bullfrogs need two years to fully emerge from their tadpole stage. Red-legged frogs only need one.

So to eliminate the bullfrogs, Bland worked with the quarry to drain several ponds. Now, bullfrogs are a rare sight.

“There used to be hundreds if not thousands,” Bland said. “Now we’re lucky if we see a couple”

Graniterock expects to finish mining the quarry in several years, according to West. But he said the company has set aside funds to maintain the breeding ponds, including periodic draining to keep the bullfrog population low. The work likely will need to continue for a long time, as bullfrogs travel in from areas outside the quarry.

From Santa Cruz Sentinel