THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For British dailies and websites, India is still a land of snakecharmers, ropetricks and believe it or not, frog worship! For the last two days British media has been celebrating a story on how a colour-changing frog from Thiruvananthapuram is being worshipped for miracles by the masses.
The story in Telegraph ran thus: “The creature was discovered in a flower bed and now draws hundreds of followers to the home where it is kept in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.” ‘Sun’ went a frog-leap further: “A frog that constantly changes colour is being worshipped as God in India. Hundreds of curious followers flock to Reji Kumar’s home every day to pray and ask for miracles”.
The Student Operated Press even called Rejikumar (the discoverer) an ‘idiot’ who was afraid that the frog kept in a bottle might croak and then die.
Dozens of websites picked up on the story of the colour-changing frog, which is common throughout South Asia. Rejikumar, the so-called discoverer of the frog, who lives near Pachalloor in the city, dismissed the news as absolutely baseless.
“It is true that I found a frog that changed colour, but there is no worship and no followers here. I handed over the frog to the scientists at the University of Kerala more than a month ago,” he said.
The British media also wrote about one of India’s top zoologists Oommen V Oommen of the University of Kerala having decided to study the unusual creature.
The zoologists at the University had in fact identified the frog as Common Tree Frog with the scientific name Polypedatus maculatus. They found the colour changing from white to yellow and then greyish brown, a phenomenon quite common during the mating season.
“We contacted eminent frog specialists like Dr Sanil George of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology and came to know that swift and complete colour change is a peculiarity of this very common amphibian. After two days, confirming the phenomenon as quite natural in this species, we released the frog in its moist habitat. It was the best we could do for the frog as it did not have taken food for four days,” said Ramachandran, a research student working with Oommen V Oommen.
This frog, which the British media says is being worshipped in Kerala, is in fact happily hopping away somewhere in the wild, blissfully unaware of the hullabaloo that it has managed to create across the world. “Nature is full of wonders and are to be understood/approached scientifically and not with superstition,” said Ramachandran.
Google ‘Colour Changing Frog’ to get a feel of the false propaganda. Or log on to http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ news/2469396/Frog-that -changescolour- worshipped-in-India-as-a-god.
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