New Delhi, Dec. 13: A tube-nosed bat, the pygmy hog and several species of frogs are among species facing imminent extinction at 16 sites in India, international wildlife scientists have said.

The 16 sites are among 595 centres of “imminent extinction” worldwide where habitat destruction and low populations have pushed species confined to single sites to the brink of extinction, the scientists said in a study released yesterday.

The researchers have identified 794 species of a number of amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles distributed among the 595 sites that are likely to become extinct without immediate conservation measures.

Since 1500 AD, experts estimate, the world has lost 245 species. “We, therefore, risk losing three times as many species as are known to have been lost over the last 500 years,” said Taylor Ricketts from the World Wildlife Fund and his colleagues from other conservation organisations in the new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US.

The highly-threatened species at the Indian sites include several species of frogs found nowhere else in the world except along the Western Ghats, a tube-nosed bat found only around the hills of Mussoorie, the pygmy hog found in Assam’s Manas National Park and the spiny shrew of the Andamans. Some of the frogs are confined to an area of less than 100 sq km.

Scientists believe that the so-called Peter’s tube-nosed bat is also currently confined to an area of less than 100 sq km in the forests at the foothills of the Himalayas near Mussoorie.

An assessment on the endangered species done last year indicated that housing and tourism contributed to the loss of habitat of the bat.

Amphibians under threat of imminent extinction include the Indirana gundia, a frog confined to a small zone of Western Ghat forests in Karnataka and Nyctibatrachus vasanthi, a frog found in the Kalakad-Mundathurai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu.