v10i2.269

Submitted date: 26 August 2021
Published date: 22 November 2021
Pp. 140–145

LETTER TO EDITOR: A response to Narayanan et al. (2021) “On the validity of the recently described bush frog Raorchestes kollimalai Gowande, Ganesh & Mirza, 2020” published in Zootaxa

Zeeshan A. Mirza* & Gaurang Gowande
*E-mail: snakeszeeshan@gmail.com

Narayanan et al. (2021) make extremely grave allegations of ‘misrepresentation of data’ by Gowande et al. (2020). Narayanan et al. (2021) found serious flaws in the publication dealing with the description of Raorchestes kollimalai by Gowande, Ganesh & Mirza (2020). The authors state that Gowande et al. (2020) overlooked many errors, which consequently raises questions on the validity of R. kollimalai. We here respond to their comments, dispel their false allegations of misrepresentation of data and provide evidence for the validity of Raorchestes kollimalai. A common practice while writing a response/critique of a published paper is to contact the editor of the journal in which the paper was published, which, in this case, is TAPROBANICA. However, Narayanan et al. (2021) chose to publish their critique in a different journal, ZOOTAXA and thus, were unaware of the erratum to the paper on the new species. The erratum that was published in a recent issue of Taprobanica (Gowande et al. 2021) resolves some of the concerns raised by Narayanan et al. (2021). These concerns were a mistake on the part of Gowande et al. (2020) but by no means did the authors intend to hide or misrepresent data as accused by Narayanan et al. (2021).