Sand-eating tadpoles found in Western Ghats

Researchers have discovered a sand-eating tadpole that lives in total darkness, until it fully develops into a young frog.
•    The group of scientists from the University of Delhi, the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and Gettysburg College, California discovered and documented the tadpole in the peer-reviewed PLOS One, an open-access journal.
•    The tadpole belongs to the so-called Indian Dancing Frog family, Micrixalidae. 
•    They get that name from their habit of waving their legs as a sign of territorial and sexual display while sitting on boulders in streams.
•    In January, Dr.Biju reported in the same journal of a frog species called Frankixalusjerdonii, once considered a species lost to science.
•    The purple tadpoles were discovered from the deep recesses of streambeds in the Western Ghats and they possess muscular eel-like bodies and skin-covered eyes, which helps them to burrow through gravel beds.
•    Though they lack teeth, they have serrated jaw sheaths, to possibly prevent large sand grains from entering the mouth while feeding and moving through sand.
•    Other unusual features of the tadpoles were ribs and whitish globular sacs storing calcium carbonate, known as “lime sacs.