J. South Asian nat. Hist., ISSN 1022-0828. January, 1998. Vol.3, No. 1, pp.103-112, 4 figs., 1 tab. © Wildlife Heritage Trust of Sri Lanka, 95 Cotta Road, Colombo 8, Sri Lanka. A new species of Philautus (Anura: Rhacophoridae) from the Eastern Ghats, south-eastern India Indraneil Das* and S.K. Chanda** A bstract A new species of Philautus is described from the vicinity of Vishakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh in south-eastern India. The new species is compared with congeners from peninsular India and Sri Lanka. Since the members of the genus are restricted to wet evergreen forests of the region, remnant patches of wet forests within a now largely degraded and arid Eastern Ghats are apparently refugia, supporting species that are tolerant of mesic conditions. Key words: taxonomy, amphibians, Philautus, new species, Eastern Ghats, India. Introduction The genus Philautus Gistel, 1848 show s a disjunction in its distribution, w ith member species ranging form Sri Lanka and south-w estern peninsular India, and then, after a gap of over a thousand kilometres, reappearing in north- eastern India, from where they range south (to the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago) and east (to southern China and the Philippines; see Frost, 1985; Inger and Dutta, 1986). No species had been reported from peninsular India outside of the W estern Ghats, prior to the reports by Sathyamurthi (1967) and Sarkar et al. (1993), w ho recorded P. variabilis from Golconda Hills, Andhra Pradesh State, south-eastern India. W hile exam ining the herpetological * M useum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, M assachusetts 02138, USA. Present address: Centre for Herpetology, M adras Crocodile Bank Trust, Post Bag 4, M amallapuram, Tamil N adu 603 104, India. ** Zoological Survey of India, Fire-Proof Spirit Building, 27 J. L. Nehru Road, Calcutta 700 016, India.