User:Sclodiggity

The Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis is a new species of frogs which was recently discovered in the Western Ghats, hills along the west coast of India. The frog is unlike any family of frog known, and has been put in a new family, Nasikabatrachidae. A phylogenetics analysis of 2.8 kilobases of mitochondrail and nuclear DNA supports this conclusion, and the phylogentics relationships discussed later. The new species is a burrowing frog, and has many adaptive characteristics to this life style such as a fat body, stubby limbs, a slender mouth and protrused snout, and enlargement of several bones. The holotype is at the Bombay Natural History Society.

The N. sahyadrensis is the sister taxa of the Sooglossidae, a family of frogs found only in the Seychelle Islands. This leads researchers to beleive that the common ancester lived on the Indian sub-continent which was part of Eastern Goncwanaland. This landmass gave rise to both the Seychelle Islands, and modern day India, which is how the species became separated and diverged allopatrically. This also settles the disputes over the phylogenetics position of the Sooglossidae, which were debated as fitting into the Ranoidea family or the Hyloidea famliy, but is now known to have diverged from these families earlier than thier radiations. Bayesian divergence time estimates put the Sooglossidae-Nasikabatrachidae divergence around 178 million years ago, 26 million years before the Ranoids and Hyloids diverged.