A unique “catcall” inspired the name of the meowing night frog (pictured), one of 12 new species of frogs found recently in western India, a new study says.
The 1.4-inch (3.5-centimeter) frog Nyctibatrachus poocha—”poocha” meaning “domestic cat” in the local Indian language—has a “secretive lifestyle,” hiding out inside rock crevices in the states of Western Ghats-Kerala and Tamil Nadu, said Biju Das, a biologist at the University of Delhi.
Between 1994 and 2010, Das and colleagues scoured forests along Indian’s western coast for nocturnal, stream-dwelling frogs in the poorly studied genus Nyctibatrachus. In addition to revealing the 12 new species, the team rediscovered 3 species thought extinct, according to the study, published September 15 in the journal Zootaxa.