His encounter with a living fossil in the Western Ghats has created a flutter among naturalists. S.D. Biju, a botanist at the Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute (TBGRI) in Palode, hardly imagined that the three-inch purple frog he photographed was the last of the species that lived more than 65 million years ago.TBGRI director G.M. Nair says Biju developed an interest in frogs during his plant-collection trips. ‘‘We used to come across tree frogs in the forest. Biju had a fancy for photography and would climb atop trees to photograph them,’’ he said.Biju is currently on leave from TBGRI and is working in London on a fellowship from The Royal Society and the Indian National Science Academy. His find was reported in the latest issue of Nature.‘‘Biju is a botanist and the evolutionary studies of the frog were done in Brussels by Franky Bossuyt,’’ says T.S.Nair, head of the Conservation Biology Department at TBGRI.‘‘Biju has collected information on more than 100 native frogs and will soon publish a series,’’ he said. The database is expected to shed light on 60-65 new species. Meanwhile, the purple frog has been named Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, after the Sahyadris in the Western Ghats.
