Bhupathy's Purple Frog - Secondary Hero

Quick Facts

Name: Bhupathy’s Purple Frog

Diet: The tadpoles feed on algae in fast-flowing streams and adults feed on ants and termites below ground

Behaviour: Solitary

Lifespan: Unknown

Size: 5-9cm in length and around 165g with the females being larger than the males

Habitat/Range: Srivilliputhur Grizzled Giant Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary, Western Ghats, India

Threats: Habitat loss, water abstraction for agriculture, climate change, damns, capture of tadpoles for local medicine

Conservation Status: Critically endangered

Names & Nicknames: Bhupathy’s Purple Frog

Size: These bulbous bouncers are generally around 5-9cm long and around 165g in weight, as wide and heavy as the average pear, but don't take a bite!

Communication: Why ribbit when you can shout like a chicken instead? Males can be heard squawking away at the beginning of monsoon season, like purple poultry imposters, as they wait for their squelchy female lovers to come give them a ride.

Favourite Hangout: Underground is the SPOT for Bhupathy’s. They love it. In fact, they spend almost their entire adult lives underground, apart from a couple of days a year when it's time to mate.

Favourite Snack: Ants and termites, which they slurp up with their flute-like tongues. Younger Bhupathy’s, AKA tadpoles, start out with a vegan disposition, preferring to snack on algae.

Toilet Humour: Well... that booty doesn't quit.

Love Language: The arrival of the monsoon rain is the romantic cue for these frogs to emerge from their burrows and start the love quest. Males will squawk away until a nice, strong female – generally much larger than the men – finds them. The female carries the male on her back to a good breeding site where the magic happens.

If you see them: Well, you're one of a lucky few as these frogs are rarely seen, even by the people who study them! As they come out only in the monsoon season, you’ll also probably be soaking wet.

Red Flags: These rain-soaked lovers rely on regular monsoon seasons and nice, fast-flowing, unpolluted streams to reproduce. So when water from these streams is used in agriculture or polluted, or their habitat is lost, or even when climate change wreaks havoc on monsoon timings, it’s no wonder these frogs are struggling!

Epic Journeys: They're only found in one national park in India. They do have their yearly pilgrimage from their comfy burrows to the scary outside world, however.

Glow-up: A couple of days after the adults have done their business, tadpoles will hatch into fast-flowing streams. Whereas other frog species' tadpoles spend their days leisurely swimming, the stormy conditions Bhupathy pups are born into mean they have to hang onto rocks with their special suckerfish-like mouths! On the upside, they'll munch on algae as they go. After about 120 days in the torrent, it's time to disappear underground.

Facts: These frogs may have only been discovered by scientists in 2017, but they have been around longer than that! They were popping their squishy heads up when dinosaurs were roaming the earth.

Who are they in the friendship group: Won’t see them all year, but then they suddenly appear for a 2-day dating marathon!

How threatened are they: Critically Endangered.