[citation needed] The family is characterized by having a pectoral girdle that is firmisternal and tadpoles having a single row of labial teeth.

[4] Biju et al. (2014) list the following characteristic features as common to all species of Micrixalus:[5] Finger and toes with dermal fringes, and discs dilated with dorsoterminal grooves; pupil oval; webbing absent on hand; pineal ocellus, vomerine teeth and ridge absent.Dancing frogs are found in the vicinity of fast and slow moving perennial streams in the forests of the Western Ghats.

[2][5] During the breeding season, male dancing frogs call from spots close to running water and display their prominent white vocal sacs.

The pair detach, the female lays her eggs in the chamber in the streambed and buries the spawn with sand and gravel using the hindlimbs.

The results, which were published in the peer-reviewed Ceylon Journal of Science in May 2014, have arisen from a study conducted over a dozen years in the forests of the Western Ghats in the states of Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

[7] The species were differentiated due to molecular markers from DNA analysis which also indicated that the endemic group had evolved in this habitat approximately 85 million years ago.