Last week, I wrote about the elusive agamid that I stumbled upon in Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh. A similar story unfolded during a visit to Nainbagh in Tehri Garhwal in Uttarakhand. Nainbagh is on the main road that leads to Yamunotri, one of Uttarakhand’s well-known pilgrimage destinations. I was in Nainbagh with a colleague, Arun Prasad, who is from Bangseel village of Tehri Garhwal district.
We were staying at a small hotel in Suman Kyari, which is one km from Nainbagh. On our first night there I said, “Arun, lets go for a night walk.” Arun, only 23 years of age, is a passionate conservationist, but is only just getting to peek into the world of nature. He had never been on a night walk to observe creepy-crawlies before and was quite excited about it. A few hundred metres from where we stood was a bridge over a bustling Himalayan stream. We walked to the stream and both of us went different ways, looking for ‘herps’ (amphibians and reptiles).
At the end of an hour-long search we met up to share what we had found. While I had located a rare lizard, Arun had found a rare frog! And we were both thrilled with our finds. I found the banded bent-toed gecko (Cyrtodactylus fasciolatum) and Arun had located the Jaunsar cascade frog (Amolops jaunsari). The banded bent-toed gecko is called so because it has bent toes. This lizard is found only in the north-facing hill slopes of the outer Himalayas between heights of 600 to 1,800 metres. Since it is quite rare, I was thrilled to see it, and spent a long time photographing it. The lizards were on the ramparts of the bridge, but quite high up or down below, making it difficult to photograph. Eventually, I located one fella that was close to the road, and I clicked away.
I was so involved with the gecko that I missed the frog altogether on our first night out. Hence, on the second night, it was time for me to locate the Jaunsar cascade frog. This frog is always found on boulders in the midst of gushing Himalayan streams at night. Knowing this, I precariously made my way out to the wet, mossy boulders in the stream. I spotted three frogs all within a metre of each other! All the frogs were males, and they perched perkily on the damp boulders. The cascade frogs get their names because their habitat is cascading streams. These frogs have large discs at the end of their toes that helps them cling to wet rocks and boulders in the streams.
As I stood in the water, with my sandals soaked, I heard one of the frogs utter a soft “crek”. Then the other frogs joined in too. I realised that all the three frogs were males, and were calling in the hope of attracting a female mate. This was the first time I had heard the frogs call, as this genus of frogs is mostly silent.
A scientist from Dehradun discovered the Jaunsar cascade frog only in 1992. It is the only frog that is endemic to Uttarakhand, being recorded from only a few districts in Garhwal and I have seen it myself on only a few occasions. In fact, a search on Wikipedia resulted in a web page that stated that the frog had not been seen in decades and was possibly extinct! Come to Nainbagh folks, I see the Jaunsar cascade frog! Two rather interesting frog and lizard sightings over two nights left me delighted with my ‘herping’ trip in the Himalayas.
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