New species News

Reptiles such as chameleons are famed for changing their colour and amphibians such as frogs often escape the radar. Not this time though. Researchers at a tiger reserve in the…

What lurks underground, is miniature and resembles bhujia, a popular Indian snack, when preserved? A very special fish called the Bhujia eel loach. Bhujia eel loach (Pangio bhujia), a new…

A new species of small burrowing frog has been discovered from the Chota Nagpur plateau in Jharkhand. Scientists have named it ‘Magadha Burrowing Frog,’ (Sphaerotheca magadha) after the ancient kingdom of…

Cameras placed across protected and community forests in the Dibang Valley in Arunachal Pradesh recorded six different coat colours of the Asiatic golden cat (Catopuma temminckii). In all, the cameras…

This week's stories rolled into one. To receive a weekly email with a roundup of our stories, please sign-up to our newsletter. Punjab farmers’ widows respond to apathy by standing…

The first snakehead fish with an underground lifestyle was hiding in the aquifers of Kerala until a chance encounter, social media and the historic floods of Kerala in 2018 thrust…

The new-to-science Arunachal pit viper was perfectly camouflaged among dry leaf litter when Rohan Pandit and Wangchu Phiang accidentally stumbled upon it when out on a march through a forest…

One more new frog species has been spotted in the Western Ghats of India, reconfirming the region’s status as home to one of the richest assemblage of frogs in the…

Researchers at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun, had been, for long, puzzled by the features of hog deer at the Keibul Lamjao National Park (KLNP) in Manipur. Although…

It was after a heavy spell of rain during the 2015 monsoon that Sonali Garg walked out to a spot she had been visiting regularly, and unsuccessfully, for more than…

On 26 April 2008, a never-before-seen species of shark arrived on the fishing harbour in Kochi. It was accidentally caught while fishing for economically important sharks from the deep-sea waters.…

The year 2019 is here, and with it there is a general feeling of excitement, which we all feel when something is "new". Before the feeling gets old, let's take…

A blood-red, snake-like creature with an elongated body and sightless black spots for eyes, was spotted burrowing into the moist soil of a rainforest in Meghalaya. Amphibian biologist Rachunliu G.…

The Western Ghats have revealed two new genera of dragon lizards from the family Agamidae -- Monilesauras and Microauris. Using a combination of extensive field surveys, detailed taxonomic analyses and genetic…

On a wet rainy day in 2014, Kiran Marathe was busy looking for loud, clamorous cicadas hiding in the bushes, in Verlem district in South Goa. Marathe, a young 20-something…

The Kabini river originates in the Western Ghats of northern Kerala. Cutting through the Ghats, it flows eastwards to join the Cauvery river in the neighbouring state of Karnataka. During…

Something wicked this way comes for amphibians in India? The chytrid fungus, which has spelt doom for amphibian populations across the globe, has been detected in frogs across all major…

About an hour’s drive away from Coimbatore, in the Anaikatti hills, scientists from the herpetology division of Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON) have found a new…

A Gujarat-based scientist duo  from the Bapalal Vaidya Botanical Research Centre of the Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, have found a very small fern— just about the size of a…

Researchers have identified an entirely new subspecies of bamboo bat - characterised by distinctive flattened skulls - from the Andaman archipelago, that differs from other members of its species in…