A new species of subterranean, legless amphibian has been discovered by scientists in Maharashtra's Northern Western Ghats, the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) said in a statement on Saturday.
The new species has been named Gegeneophis chandgadi in honour of the local Chandgadi dialect of Marathi spoken in the region, the statement said.
The species was discovered in Buzawade in Chandgad, Kolhapur district, by a multi-institutional team comprising researchers from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), WRC Pune, Yashwantrao Chavan Mahavidyalaya, Halkarni, Savitribai Phule Pune University and the Mhadei Research Centre, Goa.
The formal taxonomic description and detailed findings have been published in the Records of the ZSI.
Researchers said the name Gegeneophis chandgadi recognises the linguistic and cultural identity of the Chandgad region, while also acknowledging the role of local residents whose traditional ecological knowledge helped the team locate the elusive amphibian.
The newly described species belongs to the caecilian group, a little-known group of limbless amphibians that live largely underground and are often mistaken for earthworms or blind snakes.
Scientists used a combination of molecular data and detailed morphological and meristic analyses to establish that the specimens represented a distinct species.
Significantly, the caecilians were found in residential and agricultural landscapes inhabited and used by people, rather than exclusively inside protected forest areas.
The finding highlights the presence of potentially important subterranean biodiversity even in human-dominated landscapes, researchers said.
The discovery also underscores the need for systematic surveys of soil and subterranean ecosystems in the Western Ghats, one of India's major biodiversity hotspots.
With about 41 per cent of global amphibian species facing the threat of extinction, documenting little-known species is critical to preventing what researchers described as "silent extinctions", where species may disappear before they are formally identified.
India currently records 458 amphibian species, including 41 caecilian species. With the latest discovery, the number of Gegeneophis species recorded in the country has risen to 12, of which 11 are endemic to the Western Ghats, according to researchers.
The study was authored by scientists Sahil Shikalgar, Rahul N Patil, Pranjal Adhav, Nirmal U Kulkarni, NC Hirgond, NP Gramapurohit, Basudev Tripathy and KP Dinesh.
The researchers said the discovery demonstrates the importance of continued field surveys and community participation in documenting the region's lesser-known biodiversity.
