A comprehensive Checklist of Indian Amphibians has been updated and launched on the Zoological Survey of India website. This checklist has been uploaded on 15th May 2020.
Since 2009, Scientists of the Zoological Survey of India in collaboration with other Indian institutes have been updating the Indian amphibian checklist periodically. In 2009 the total number of Indian amphibian species recorded in the checklist was 284 while now, after a decade the checklist records a 447 species (which more than 150% upsurge in documentation in one decade).
The updated checklist includes systematic classification with scientifically updated species names and year of discovery with their IUCN Red List conservation status, available till April 2020. The systematics followed is after Amphibian Species of the World database and, the nomenclature after the ICZN codes.
Among the amphibians listed, 20 species are treated as Critically endangered and 35 species as Endangered. It highlights 19% of amphibians as data deficient species and about 39% as not assessed as per Red List conservation status of IUCN. It is high time to assess the IUCN conservation status for the Indian ‘Data Deficient 19% (86 species) and ‘Not Assessed’ 39% (175 species) category of amphibians based on species specific field explorations.
This updated comprehensive checklist will help students of Herpetology, researchers and conservation scientists as well as policy makers to understand the diversity of Indian amphibians and their up to date nomenclature.
This checklist is compiled by research scientists Dr. K.P. Dinesh from the Zoological Survey of India, Western Regional Centre, Pune, Dr. C. Radhakrishnan from Calicut, Dr. B.H. Channakeshavamurthy from ZSI, Calicut, Mr. P. Deepak from Mount Carmel College, Bengaluru and Mr. Nirmal U Kulkarni from the Mhadei Research Centre, Goa.
Download: https://www.amphibians.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/2020_Indian_Amphibian_checklist.pdf