A Sri Lanka Bullfrog in my garden

I found a Sri Lanka Bullfrog aka. Sri Lanka Painted Frog Kaloula taprobanica, while I clearing a garbage bin, outside my Kitchen on 23 November, 2007. It was hiding underneath the bin. And with its distinctive colour pattern, it caught my attention straightaway. This was my first encounter with this little frog. But I knew what it was the very moment I saw it. This frog has an interesting life-cycle, and is known to live a life of underground existence during the dry times, at times being found in 10-12 feet below, at times! It surfaces out during the wetter times for breeding.

The species etymology of this frog alludes to Taprobane, a pre-Christian era name for the island of Sri Lanka. It was coined by Onesicritus, companion of Alexander the Great's campaigns in northwestern India after the name that existed for Sri Lanka: Tambapanni. It means "copper-hued palms". That was how the ancient settlers from Northern India. These settlers colonised Lanka in the 6th century B.C., and according to the Mahavamsa, the Great Chronical. This was named like because the soil in the place of their landfall turned the palms of the settlers copper coloured after they rested on it following landfall.

The island of Sri Lanka is referred as Tamrapanni in the 3rd century B.C rock edicts of Emperor Ashoka in North India. Therefore, Tamrapanni is another variant of the name, Tambapanni. While leading a SLWCS trip with some US visitors in 2004, I have been to this general area—a site called Kudremalai—inside the Wilpattu National Park (131,693 ha). The sand was strikingly reddish-hued. Here' a photo of that soil with a nice Fan-throated Lizard (Sitana ponticeriana) to complement it.