To study species richness and altitudinal distribution of amphibian (recorded till now) in bhutan to draw people’s attention for its conservation and future studies
International Journal of Development Research
To study species richness and altitudinal distribution of amphibian (recorded till now) in bhutan to draw people’s attention for its conservation and future studies
Received 20th November, 2017; Received in revised form 13th December, 2017; Accepted 19th January, 2018; Published online 28th February, 2018
Copyright © 2018, Dorji Norbu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Nearly 168 species of amphibians are believed to be extinct and at least 2,469 are known to be declining (Stuart, 2004). Currently, about 40 species of amphibians is reported from Bhutan (Wangyel, 2013), but the study determining its species diversity and the habitat use. This paper presents the state-of-the-knowledge on the species richness and distribution pattern of the amphibians of Bhutan. However, the study about amphibian is scanty in the country. Only 40 species of amphibians are so far reported from Bhutan of which of which 38 species are anurans, one caecilian and a Salamander. Seven families under order Anura are known to occur in Bhutan, of which, Dicroglossidae is the most specious and Hylidae the least. Amphibian fauna of Bhutan hitherto remain seriously underexplored. Further, majority of the species needs detail taxonomic treatment. The amphibian species richness peak at an altitude upto-500m asl where 15 out of 40 species are recorded.
