Watched a NaGeo story about frogs having vanished from human vicinity. Those colorful creatures have indeed vanished gradually.
Made me remember how our college lecturer (in PU Biology lab) had slain a frog in the 'frog dissection' class. He had shown us and explained about frog's organs and shown how its heart pumped out even after separating it from the frog's body, to all of us in the batch. It was the same for the other batches of Biology students, as well (one frog said 'bye bye' to its life for each batch of students). He had practically shown and described about the different parts of the frog's anatomy which now I hardly remember ;) poor frog... had to part with its life for literally no use. Perhaps none of us who watched the dissection in the lab that day remember anything about the frog's anatomy now (though one can always look up in some encyclopedia if needed). We also were made to dissect cockroaches... and all that for some 10 marks in Practicals. fancy that! ;)
Wikipedia article cites these reasons for the drastical decline in frog population:
"Pollutants are one cause for this decline, but other culprits include climatic changes, parasitic infestation, introduction of non-indigenous predators/competitors, infectious diseases, and urban encroachment."
can't agree more. The last time I saw some really colorful species of frogs was some 6 years back, in the little tank of the huge park in front of our home in Shimoga. The park had loads of them all around. Go west, towards malnad, and you'll find wide varieties of them in Arecanut fields and the thick vegetation so unique to the malnad region. But, frogs here in Bangalore have been a rarity to spot.
btw, have you seen sparrows in Bangalore anywhere? I've been in Bangalore for past 5 years, but surprisingly, I'm yet to spot a sparrow in Bangalore! Looks like they've all vanished!
