Spotted torrent frog

Description:

This guy was definitely one of the dominant males around. He wouldn't let any rival male get onto the rock, he would kick them within a minute. Some males would jump off just by seeing his flagged foot. This male was different among the other male i observed. This male would flag both his feet at the same time. He was so dominant!! I was waiting for a female to turn up, but was unlucky. By 8-9 PM, the activity of most individual males would come to a halt. some would croak on seeing a pair.

Habitat:

Rocky streams

Notes:

Finally!! i got to see the unique foot flagging behavior the torrent frogs aka the "dancing" frogs. The one i observed was of Micrixalus specca or the spotted torrent frog. For some reasons I missed it last year. But this year there was no backing. Made 2 visits to observe these behavior. cant resist to make another visit I was able to spot a total of 23 individual males, 2 pairs in amplexus, and one female in about 100 meters of the stream. The males started calling around 3-4 PM and activity was at its peak around 6-7 PM. I had to advertise my presence, made sure that i was not a threat. This alone took 30-45 mins. The moment i made any movements from my position the frogs would be distracted and i had to wait again for another 30-45 mins for the frogs to cool off. I considered 10 foot by 10 foot area. There were 12 males. I chose a male which was on a 15 cm high rock(which was the highest rock in the area i considered for observation). I sat beside the rock in the stream and started my observation. I couldn't make the observation of the egg laying behavior as the only 2 pairs i got to see were just hanging around. I had to leave the stream by 10 as there were movements of the jumbo!!