Sathyabhama Das Biju’s untiring expeditions to identify the amphibian diversity of the country

Sathyabhama Das Biju will be honoured with the Kerala Sree award instituted by the State government

‘The Frogman of India’, ‘India’s maverick frog man’, and ‘The patron saint of amphibians’ — biologist Sathyabhama Das Biju goes by several acclamatory sobriquets.

The Keralite is credited with discovering nearly one-fourth of the country’s amphibian diversity. He has described 116 amphibian species, two families and 12 genera.

Dr. Biju, however, remains indebted to his first discovery — the Purple Frog or Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis — that shaped the contours of his striking academic career. Also named after the mythological king Mahabali for its characteristic of “arriving” once a year, the endangered species recently came close to being anointed the Official Frog of Kerala.

The discovery also paved the way for his transformation from a plant systematist to an amphibian biologist after obtaining a second PhD from the Amphibian Evolution Lab in Brussels. He was earlier a scientist at the Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanical Garden and Research Institute in Thiruvananthapuram.

What made him go in search of the slimy little creatures? “Trying to understand biodiversity is of prime importance to me. I like frogs because the lower life forms in India have always been neglected. Biodiversity studies in the country generally begin with tigers and elephants and end with birds, which are considered the most charismatic beings. Ours is a country that has discovered 462 amphibian species, with more waiting to be found. As many as 8,580 species have been documented globally. Amphibians are the largest group of vertebrates after birds and fishes. Understanding biodiversity is extremely crucial as it provides much insight into many of our existential problems like climate change and global warming,” he says.

Dr. Biju, a Senior Professor at the University of Delhi, is among the first recipients of the Kerala Sree award, instituted by the Kerala government, that will be presented this week. He is set to join Harvard University as an Associate of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology in a few months.

The amphibian researcher, who had pursued BSc, MSc and his first PhD in Botany at Kerala and Calicut universities, rues the scant regard for research in biodiversity and conservation in the State, a land blessed with the Western Ghats for its natural richness.