86 



Current Herpetol. 20(2) 2001 



lore), Madikeri, Kudremukh, Bhatkal, 

 and Talagini (about 35 km NE of Bhatkal). 

 Madikeri, Kudremukh, and Talagini are in 

 the Western Ghats. 



Recordings were made using a cassette 

 tape recorder (Sony TCM-55 or TCM-AP5) 

 and the calls were analyzed using the 

 software SoundEdit Pro (Macromedia) for 

 a Macintosh computer. 



Of ten species analyzed, six belong to 

 the Ranidae and four to the Rhacoph- 

 oridae. For the Ranidae we adopted 

 currently recognized genera (Dubois, 

 1992; Duellman, 1993). Identification of 

 species is very difficult especially in the 

 genera Limnonectes and Philautus. 

 Some frogs did not fit the original 

 descriptions of species which are known 

 to occur in the Western Ghats and adja- 

 cent areas, and we refer to them as 

 Limnonectes cf. keralensis, Philautus cf. 

 travancoricus, and P. cf. bombayensis in 

 the present study. 



Results and Discussion 



1. Rana temporalis 



Males of R. temporalis were calling on 

 the banks of ditches or ponds, sometimes 

 perching on branches. The advertisement 

 call was composed of a single note of 

 about 0.05 sec in duration and about 

 2.8 kHz in dominant frequency (Fig. lA, 

 Table 1). In several calls, fine harmonic 

 structures were observed between 1 and 

 3 kHz. Mean interval between notes was 

 about 1.7 sec. Within a series of single- 

 note calls, there were calls with a few 

 successive notes (Fig. IB). We observed 

 two males actively calling in close proximity 

 on the bank of a pond in Madikeri. The 



0.5 

 TIME ISEC) 



1 . 



Fig. 1. Advertisement calls of Rana tempora- 

 lis recorded in Kudremukh at 22°C. Single-note 

 call (A) and multi-note call (B). 



notes were much shorter and repeated at a 

 much higher rate than the ordinary calls, 

 but we were unable to analyze this encoun- 

 ter or the agonistic calls due to heavy back- 

 ground noise. 



Note length and dominant frequency 

 differed significantly between popula- 

 tions of Kudremukh and Madikeri (Table 

 1). This may be due to the differences in 

 breeding urge and body size of males, 

 but we could not get any concrete 

 evidence. 



2. Limnonectes limnocharis 



The advertisement calls of this species 

 were recorded in rice paddies of Padil on 

 6 July 1999 at an air temperature 26°C. 

 The call was composed of many notes 

 with a mean note length of 0.19 sec 

 (N=ll), a mean fundamental frequency of 

 2.07 kHz, and a second dominant band at 

 3.73 kHz (Fig. 2A). The duration of a 

 call and the number of notes involved 

 varied considerably from call to call. Two 

 neighboring males tended to call alter- 

 nately (Fig. 2A). 



The distribution range of L. limnocharis 

 is very wide, covering most parts of the 



Table 1. Acoustic characteristics of the advertisement calls of R. temporalis (mean±SD). 







Note length 



Dom. frequency 







Locality 



N 



(sec) 



(kHz) 



Temp. 



Date 



Kudremukh 



15 



0.046±0.008 



2.73+0.10 



22°C 



3 July 1999 



Madikeri 



10 



0.059+0.007 



2.83+0.07 



22°C 



10 July 1999 



