12 Known Species of Frogs Found in The Western Ghats

The Western Ghats of India hosts a rich diversity of rare frog species, everyday or another a new species of frog discovered in the Western Ghats of South India. India’s richest biodiversity hotspots is not only home to endemic frog families but also host several endemic reptiles including lizards and snakes.

Purple Frog

Purple Frog or Indian purple frog is native to the Western Ghats and restricted to the Palghat Gap, some portions of the Agasthyamalai Hill and Vellarimala mountain range in Kerala. The endangered and endemic frog only come to surfaces during the monsoon for mating and spends most of its life underground.

Bicolored Frog

Bicolored frog also known as Malabar frog are distinctive enough to recognize with two layer patterns and endemic to the Western Ghats, around slow moving streams but unfortunately collected for local consumption.

Fungoid Frog

Fungoid frog or Malabar Hills frog is a colourful frog, from from Bombay to Kerala in the Western Ghats and mostly distributed in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa with overlap range of widespread fungoid frog.

Dancing Frog

Dancing Frogs or Micrixalus genus of frogs have been recently discovered in the jungles of western ghats. Micrixalus are popularly known as dancing frogs to attract females and only found around slow moving streams and high altitude shola forest.

Shrub Frog

Resplendent shrubfrog is one of the critically endangered species of frogs,endemic to the high altitude of Western Ghats in Kerala, found in Eravikulam National Park and the Anamudi summit.

Wart Frog

Malabar wart frog occurs in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala states, around forest edge habitats and grassland.

Golden Frog

Golden frog or also known as small wood frog and Trivandrum frog, endemic to the Western Ghats of Kerala and found in a wide variety of habitats including coastal, bamboo and rice paddies.

Amboli Toad

Amboli Toad is known to found only from the Amboli ghats of Maharashtra and a rare species listed as Critically Endangered along with its sister pecies Koyna toad, found in Koyna Wildlife Sanctuary.

Winged Gliding Frog

Winged gliding frog is one of the few amphibians in India that construct nest using leaves, found in many parts of the Western Ghats and listed as endangered.

Yellow Tree Frog

The yellow tree frog is endemic to the southern Western Ghats, found on trees around the small temporary ponds and laid eggs on leaves. The arboreal tree frog is closely related to western tree frog and Lanka whipping frog.

Malabar Flying Frog

Malabar gliding frog or Malabar flying frog is also a tree frog species found only in the Western Ghats of India. The flying frog can make gliding jumps of 9–12 m and also one of the largest moss frogs.

Indian Bullfrog

Bullfrogs are large species of frog found in India, around freshwater ponds, monsson wetlands and aquatic habitats. The species is least concern but a local delicacy for many states of India including Goa and Karnataka.

Other well known species of frogs found in the Western Ghats of India are burrowing frog, Mercurana arboreal frogs, Indian black microhylid frog, night frogs, Leaping frogs,Malabar Torrent Toad,Indian Balloon Frog and golden backed frogs.