From Guin Wogan & George Zug
Myanmar opened to biological investigations by foreign researchers in 1994. The Conservation Research Center of the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park established a collaborative research program with the Myanmar Nature and Wildlife Division in that year. The initial emphasis was on Eld’s deer ecology at the Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary (95°44.26’ N, 23°34.46’ E) in the north-central Myanmar dry zone. In July 1997, George Zug established a year around inventory and monitoring program with the staff at Chatthin. One aspect of this collaboration was a weekly frog census adjacent to the sanctuary headquarters. This program continued through December 2000. In November 1997, Joseph Slowinski visited Myanmar in pursuit of his Asian elapid studies. Impressed by the herpetological research opportunities and by an invitation and encouragement from U Uga (then director of the Myanmar Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division) to initiate an all-country herpetofaunal survey, Slowinski, with Zug, obtained NSF funding for such a survey. Formally, the all-country survey began in November 1999 with a team composed of four Burmese wildlife division rangers and a photographer. The first two years of survey focused on the central dry zone from Mandalay southward to Yangon, the Ayeyardady River delta, and the Rakhine and Bago Mountains. Beginning in March 2002, the team began surveys in the northern portions of Kachin State and Sagaing District. Survey activities centered in wildlife sanctuaries and forest reserves, but not exclusively so. To date, the joint Wildlife Division, CAS-SI Herpetofaunal Survey has obtained vouchers of about 50 species of frogs, one salamander, and two caecilians. Of these, we believe that over a dozen species are new to science. It is likely, furthermore, that some of the putatively widespread South Asian species, e.g., Rana "limnocharis," R. rugulosa, (likely representing Myanmar endemics), will be split into distinct species. Studies of the Myanmar specimens have only just begun. Guin Wogan is concentrating on the ranids and currently analyzing variation in the Rana limnocharis complex and Occidozyga, Jeff Wilkinson the Chirixalus, G. Zug recently completed a morphometric study of R. (Hoplobatrachus) rugulosa and has begun a study of central dry zone Microhyla, and Mark Wilkinson is studying the Ichthyophis.
Our studies are not designed to assess population fluctuations. They suggest, however, healthy frog populations. Many of the areas which we surveyed border or encompass non-mechanical and non-chemical agriculture (predominately rice production). In these areas, frog abundance is high, especially when assessed by the number of calling males during a species’ primary breeding season. As elsewhere in South Asia, natural habitats, particularly forests, are being logged at an increasing pace so it is probable that forest frog species are declining in abundance and occurrence where the habitat, through logging, loses its canopy, dries, and becomes bamboo thickets and weedy scrub. In flatlands, much of the logged area is converted to rice agriculture. In these circumstances, some frog species (e.g. R. limnocharis, Microhyla ornata) appear to have benefited, with increased abundance. This observation, however, is a totally subjective one. Logging and other human activities greatly increase the silt load in the streams and rivers with obvious consequences for local amphibians. We recognize the need to perform thorough surveys of agricultural areas and habitats in and around towns and cities to assess the local abundance of the human-tolerant frog species. At this time, though, our and the wildlife team’s efforts are to sample less disturbed habitats to assess the species that will likely disappear with major habitat modification. The biological research infrastructure is nearly nonexistent in Myanmar, and civil conditions potentially make night fieldwork for local scientists difficult.
For a list of Myanmar frog species, please visit our website:
www.calacademy.org/research/herpetology/myanmar/index.html
This site has a checklist of the herpetofauna of Myanmar and images of various Myanmar anurans. The checklist is now about a year old and will be updated this summer.
Contact: Guin Wogan, Department of Herpetology, California Academy of Sciences, 55 Concourse Drive, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA 94118-4599, USA.
George Zug, Division of Amphibians and Reptiles, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.20560, USA.