Foot-flagging for millennia
A multipart series from Agumbe, second chapter …
As I was getting ready to doze off after a long drive from Bangalore to Agumbe and savoring a delicious vegetarian Malnad cuisine for dinner I turned off the last lights of my dorms and for a moment I didn’t believe my eyes. “Well, was it my eyes or something else ? ”, I told myself being little bemused. For a moment I turned completely blind, I quickly assured myself that soon there will be some ambient light. I almost waited for 5 long minutes followed with no sign of hope or “sight”.
I haven’t experienced that kind of darkness ever. Yes, I could not even see my own finger which I was waving profusely, I wasn’t even sure whether my eyes are open or shut. It was pitch dark. I went with the flow, didn’t bother to turn on my flashlight. Soon, my ears took over my senses and gave me an impression of my surrounding. It was the sound of a dense forest, rain but the most significant one for that night was the sound I am so familiar from my childhood.
Croak … Croak … Croak … Croak … Croak …
I think as a kid, we all have some ties with frogs. In any rainy day, my house and surrounding would bustle with frogs each making a different croaking noise as it were they were in some kind of a picnic. Whenever I used to get bored with my evening study, I would sit on my window and listen to them. And once a while, one of the brave ones would get into our house and it used to be some kind of touch-me-not battle for several minutes and in the end I would tenderly put the frog back into the puddle.
The innocence of the child in me could never fathom that they have lived for more than 265 million years. They have survived through the ages of dinosaurs, ice ages, and needless to say our alter egos. They are true champions.
During my recent trip to Agumbe, I purposely locked myself with them in a forest and I took the luxury of that time and space to explore them a bit. They are an incredibly interesting creature, they are very handsome and pretty, they have some spectacular skin colors and nonetheless for some very good reason they are known as the environmental bellwethers (an indicator of a complex ecological changes). Their ecology is an early indicator about the well-being of the environment.
I am not sure how much they liked my presence, but I thoroughly enjoyed their company.
After the previous nights’ near blinding experience I was eager to meet the family of frogs in the forest. Bhaskar who was doing an internship at Kalinga Centre for Rainforest Ecology gave me a brief about the place and the part of the forest we were going to explore through the morning. We donned our gumboots so that we can easily tread the rivulets and stream that are everywhere in the forest. Also we tightly pulled a pair of leech socks in order for the leeches to do some extra crawling and creeping before they can get to our skin. In short, we both were all set to walk in for an adventure.
After about thirty minutes walking in the thick forest, we met our first frog family along a stream. It is known as Micrixalus Kottigeharensis or commonly known as Kottigehar Dancing Frog. These dancing / tropical / torrent frogs are from the family “Micrixalus” which you can only find in Western Ghats of India, hence, these genus of frogs are endemic to this place. It is named after a place called Kottigehara, a hamlet atop the Charmadi ghat in Mudigere taluk of Chikkamagaluru district of Karnataka state, India. I have traveled to Charmadi many a times but never knew that this place has this glory attached to it.
Frogs are a carnivorous, tailless amphibians. They are found everywhere but mostly concentrated in the tropical rainforests. That makes Western Ghats a perfect habitat for them. There are about 7,300 recorded species of frogs in the world of which Western Ghats have 117 of them and Agumbe itself has 30 recoded species of frogs. Frogs have a highly developed nervous system that consists of a brain, spinal cord and nerves. They make distinct sounds mostly keeping their mouth closed.
One prime reasons why a frog calls or croaks is to attract their mates. It is mostly the males who either alone or with a group converge in a breeding site and croak in chorus. At times they could be heard up to a mile away from the site. A female is for a lookout of the most handsome sounding male (in terms of high intensity and low frequency).
But alas !!! our new friend Kottigehar Dancing Frog doesn’t make that cut. It is 23 mm in size compared to the Indian bull frogs which are sheer 150 mm in size.
So, our dancing frog doesn’t care much about the dins and babbles of the other frogs. It has its own style of dancing by the stream.
They love to wave their feet to attract females during the breeding season. This amazing act is often called as “foot-flagging” where it attracts a female who are bigger than the male (most of the time) by stretching the hind legs out rhythmically and flashing the toe webs . They also don’t shy away to kick the butt of their rivals if needed using their karate kick.
I was very fortunate to see it displayed the prominent white vocals sacs as it was on top of a boulder in the middle of a flowing stream of water, may be showing his prowess to attract a beautiful lady from the creek.
When you think about their size, they are extremely small even in comparison to the other frogs, and it requires a habitat of 80 % canopy cover and perennial streams to strive in. It is shame that we are loosing it.
This species is now under threat from habitat destruction and it is classified into the EDGE (Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered) species.
After a period of wonder I sat quietly on one of those rocks to sink in all what were happening around me. It’s a world I am so unfamiliar with, yet being part of it for last three decades. I raised myself enthusiastically with a little tinge of mourning that I got to leave my new friend for now. I started walking again in the woods.
The child in me sprang and murmured —
And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of a whippoorwill or the arguments of frogs around a pond at night? — Chief Seattle
In the next chapter I will keep following the forest trail to see if I can meet some other frog families and share some amazing facts of how they respire through skins and why their decline is viewed as an early warning signs of environmental damage.
Learning about them is fun and also makes us more aware of our surrounding and their sheer importance of it.
The quest for me is always to drop that veil of pretense and embrace the truth, whatever that is.
Previous Chapters (Agumbe Diary)
Chapter One : https://medium.com/@suvro.banerjee16/exploring-the-rainforest-of-agumbe-bf77fb11aebe
Notes
While I was reading about Mr. Dancing Frog I came across this wonderful article by Rohan and Madhushri. I enjoyed the comic strip by Rohan thoroughly, do take a look -
https://sustain.round.glass/species/kottigehar-dancing-frog/
