Frogging in Fields

 Frogging in Fields

As a part of the Paddy Project, our team (Yogesh, Ganesh, Sahana, and Priya) documented amphibian diversity in natural and conventional paddy fields. The most entertaining part of this fieldwork was the chaos that ensued when we had to catch and identify frogs in the dark. Amphibians are mostly active during the night, so we staked out in often-desolate paddy fields at night in pairs, surrounded by croaks and chirps as a froggy orchestra performed vigorously for us. The only light came from our moth screen (equipped with LED bulbs) and our headlamps, making it a peaceful experience.

The first day was hugely amusing. An assortment of researchers and a field full of frogs makes for a lot of yelping, shouting, and hopping around, as we soon found out. Our experts - Antony, Thalavai, Thanigai, Anish, and Rahini - outnumbered us, but on our instructions, they sat back and let us flounder. Every hour, our goal was to search for and document frog diversity for 15 minutes in a row. We split up to cover all parts of the field, taking care to avoid falling into the crop! Three…two…one…START! Immediately, we started groping about in the light of our headlamps, trying to snatch up the startled frogs. The common skittering frog (Euphlyctus cyanophlyctus) was the most abundant in that field, and skitter it did as we dove for the poor creatures. These frogs are yellowish-brown in colour and have small spots on their backs. Another frog was the Indian cricket frog (Minervarya agricola), whose pip-pip-pip sound led us towards them. The cricket frog has a bold dark brown streak from its head to its tail region, making it easy to recognise by dim light. We also came across (and nearly squished) the tiniest frog in the area - Microhyla ornata, known as rice frogs or narrow-mouthed frogs. These tiny amphibians were a little larger than a fingernail (~25 mm length) and distinguishable by the large arrow-shaped mark behind the head. 

When we sat to rest after 15 minutes, Priya clutching a large bucket full of frogs in her arms, we heard the deep croak of the Indian bullfrog interspersed with the trilling of the Asian common toad. But the thought of getting up and chasing down more frisky amphibians was exhausting, and so we contented ourselves with listening to the frogs break into chorus once more.