A frog that eats snails had never been documented in India — until now. Researchers combing remote forests in the eastern Himalayas just added 5 new horned frog species to the scientific record, one of which fills that exact gap.

  • 5 new horned frog species formally described
  • 1 of them is India's first known snail-eating frog species
  • A new genus, Jingophrys, was created to hold them
  • Millions of years of Himalayan uplift shaped how the group split apart, according to DNA analysis

What makes a "horned" frog

The new species belong to the horned frog family, nicknamed for the small, pointed projections above their eyes that help them disappear into leaf litter. Spotting one in the wild usually means getting lucky, since the frogs' mottled brown skin is built to look exactly like a dead leaf.

Leading the research was SD Biju, an Indian herpetologist often called the "Frog Man of India" for a career spent documenting the country's underexplored amphibians. "Some of the new species are extremely secretive and found in remote forests only during a short breeding season," Biju said, explaining why these frogs went unrecorded for so long despite living in a well-studied country.

How DNA rewrote the family tree

Genetic analysis of the frogs showed something bigger than five new names. The horned frog group rapidly diversified into multiple distinct species as the eastern Himalayas rose and the Asian monsoon system took shape over millions of years — a process that also helped drive the evolution of the wider region's plants and animals.

Researchers say further studies will still be needed to understand the new species' biology and conservation needs, since so little is known about frogs that are rarely seen even by scientists actively looking for them.

That uncertainty cuts both ways: it means these frogs could be more vulnerable than they look, but it also means there may be more undiscovered relatives still hiding in the same forests.

Names that honor the people who found them

The discoveries didn't happen in isolation. Researchers credited local tribal communities with providing the field knowledge that made locating the frogs possible in the first place, and returned the favor by naming several species after them.

The Tanii horned frog (Jingophrys taniitatii) combines the name of the Tanii tribe with "tatti," the word for frog in the local Apatani language. Four more joined it: the snail-eating horned frog (Jingophrys tanogogo), the Siang horned frog (Jingophrys siangensis), Hrdy's horned frog (Jingophrys hrdy), and Wu-Larson's horned frog (Jingophrys wularsoni).

Arunachal Pradesh, the Indian state where the frogs were found, sits at the eastern edge of the Himalayas and is already recognized as one of the most biodiverse and least-studied regions in South Asia. This latest find adds weight to that reputation — and a reminder that entirely new branches of the amphibian family tree can still turn up in forests people have walked through for generations.

Full reporting on the discovery, including direct quotes from the research team, is available via BBC News.