DOI: 10.30906/1026-2296-2022-29-3-127-136 FEEDING SELECTIVITY IN ANURAN SPECIES FROM A TEA CULTIVATION AREA OF BARAK VALLEY, ASSAM, INDIA Sibam Sarkar 1 * and Mithra Dey 2 Submitted May 18, 2020. The stomach content was studied in adults of Kaloula pulchra, Leptobrachium smithi, Sivirana leptoglossa, and Fejervarya spp., which were encountered in the Rosekandy tea estate of Cachar. All the anuran species found were carnivorous and eighteen prey types were identified consisting of arthropods and mollusks from the anuran stom- ach-flush samples. Significant positive correlations were observed in the snout-vent length and the gape size of the anuran species with the length, width and height of their prey types. Insects of Hymenoptera and Coleoptera were consumed most frequently. Prey selections were based on the microhabitats and the habits of different anuran spe- cies. Adults of Hymenoptera were the relatively abundant prey type to all the anurans, but species like Kaloula pulchra and Sylvirana leptoglossa also showed selective feeding on termites (Isoptera). Keywords: Kaloula pulchra; Leptobrachium smithi; Sylvirana leptoglossa; food habits; selectivity; stomach- flushing method. INTRODUCTION Feeding is an essential component of a living organ- ism. Anurans (Amphibia) play a significant role in an ecosystem since they were found to serve both as a preda- tor and a prey (Dodd, 2005). They can convert about half of the of food energy into their own biomass, which transfers to the next level through food chain (Pough et al., 2004). Adult anurans were considered mostly carniv- orous (Reeder, 1964) to feed primarily on arthropods be- side mollusks, annelids and small vertebrates (Duellman and Trueb, 1986) but their diet was found to be influ- enced by the size, availability or abundance, foraging ac- tivity, mobility, palatability and nutritional value of the preys (Toft, 1980a; Duellman and Trueb, 1986). Dietary information was considered very crucial to understand the anuran life history, their population fluc- tuations, the impact of habitat modification and also to design their conservation planning (Anderson, 1991). There was very limited information available on the diet composition of adult anurans (Roy, 2008; Dey, 2013) from the southern Assam of India. Use of stomach flush- ing technique and the study on feeding selectivity in some anuran species like Leptobrachium smithi, Kaloula pulchra, and Sylvirana leptoglossa were not reported from this region. The current study was conducted in a tea garden, not only because tea plantations are a domi- nant land use type in Southern Assam (Devi et al., 2012), but also because tea gardens have been reported to main- tain a high diversity of frogs across India (Daniels, 2003). The study's goals were to identify and quantify selectivity on primary prey kinds detected in anuran stomach con- tents. MATERIAL AND METHODS Study Area Barak Valley region is a part of the Indo-Burma bio- diversity hotspot in India and comprises three districts viz. Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj. The valley is drained by the river Barak and its tributaries. The climate of the area is sub-tropical, warm and humid. The land- scape is surrounded by North Cachar Hills districts of Assam and Jaintia Hills districts of Meghalaya in the North, Manipur in the East, Mizoram in the South and Tripura and Sylhet district of Bangladesh in the West. The vegetation of the area is mostly characterised by tropical evergreen and semi evergreen forests. The pres- ent study was carried out in Rosekandy Tea Estate 1026-2296/2022/2903-0127 © 2022 Folium Publishing Company Russian Journal of Herpetology Vol. 29, No. 3, 2022, pp. 127 – 136 1 Project Fellow, Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Assam University, Silchar, Assam 788011, India; e-mail: shibamsarkar831@gmail.com 2 Professor, Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, As- sam University, Silchar, Assam 788011, India. * Corresponding author.