In Search of the Dancing Frog | Amboli, Western Ghats

In this video, I travel through the rain-soaked forests of Amboli in Maharashtra — a place where the Western Ghats meet the monsoon at its strongest. I wanted to photograph one of the smallest and most fascinating amphibians of the region — Micrixalus uttaraghati, also known as the dancing frog.

The male dancing frogs exhibit a behaviour known as foot-flagging — slowly lifting and waving a hind leg as a signal to other males and nearby females. This is what gives them the name - dancing frog. I was lucky enough, despite the rain, to capture this behaviour along with moments of interaction between individual frogs.

The film also looks at how these frogs live close to fast-flowing streams and waterfalls, where the sound of the water often overpowers their soft calls. Their visual display — the flagging — helps them communicate even in such noisy surroundings. Later in the day, the rain made it impossible to continue filming, but as darkness set in, it opened up a chance to photograph nocturnal species that thrive in the rain.

Apart from the frogs, I came across some amazing wildlife — Indian toads, pit vipers, and the remarkable waterfall crabs , a first for me. These crabs live along wet rock faces and stream edges, spending much of their time within the splash zone and feeding on algae and decaying organic matter.

Across two days of near-constant rain, I worked with whatever light and time I could find, photographing these species while keeping my equipment safe from the water. The video closes with a walk into the Amboli Botanical Garden — a well-known site for macro photography — where I found more frogs and another pit viper before wrapping up the trip.

A huge thanks to my guides - Yash and Manjit (who also lent his footage of the frogs) for this film.
I stayed at Mrugaya (https://www.mrugayaxpeditions.com) and loved the place.

00:00 Introduction
01:56 First glimpse of the frog
04:04 The long wait
05:55 Herping on Chaukul Road
08:40 Once more into the fray
12:23 The dance
19:11 Freshwater crabs
20:49 Herping in the botanical garden