One among the three special covers, being released during the second day of state-level philately exhibition--Karnapex on Sunday, will be on a frog found in the paddy fields of Adyar and Bajpe.
The tiny water frog, with a thin mid-dorsal white stripe and small black spots distributed from the beneath the eye to the fore-limb base, is no ordinary frog but a new species of frog ‘Euphlyctis Aloysii’
It was discovered in 2009 by Prof Hareesh Joshy and Prof Mitusuru Kuramoto, who was then serving as Emeritus Professor in Fukuoka University in Japan.
“It is the biggest recognition that a special cover on frog is being released for the first time in Karnataka by Karnataka Postal circle,” said Prof Joshy, who retired in 2011.
Chief Postmaster General, Karnataka circle, Charles Lobo had also invited Prof Joshy to deliver a 20-minute talk about the frogs and the need to converse such species in the Western Ghats.
Prof Joshy recollected that while serving as head of Zoology department in St Aloysius College, 15 scientific papers about the frog were published in national and international journals.
Prof Joshy was also the 10th person in India to work on the chromozones of frogs. The frog was named as Euphlyctis Aloysii in honour of St Aloysius College for backing the research on frogs.
Prof Hareesh Joshy said of the total 260 species of frogs in India, around one-third were found in the Western Ghats.
The spread of Dengue, Malaria was directly related to the decline in the population of frogs, he added.