https://www.sciencenews.org/article/india-starry-dwarf-frog-species-no-close-relatives
A tiny new frog species discovered in tropical forests of southwest India has been one of a kind for millions of years.
Palaniswamy Vijayakumar and his colleagues first spotted the new species one night in 2010 while surveying frogs and reptiles roughly 1,300 meters up in India’s Western Ghats mountain range. The frog hardly stood out — its brown back, orange belly and starlike spots acted as camouflage against the dark hues and water droplets on the forest floor. And at only 2 to 2.9 centimeters long, “it can sit on your thumb,” says Vijayakumar, a biogeographer at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Dubbed the starry dwarf frog by the team, the frog didn’t seem special among the dozens of other possibly new species discovered on the trip. But analysis of its DNA, anatomy and geographic distribution told a different story. The frog represents the sole known species of a lineage dating back 57 million to 76 million years ago, the researchers report March 12 in PeerJ. That’s around when the Indian subcontinent was merging with Asia after breaking away from Madagascar.
S. P. Vijayakumar et al. A new ancient lineage of frog (Anura: Nyctibatrachidae: Astrobatrachinae subfam. nov.) endemic to the Western Ghats of peninsular India. PeerJ. Published online March 12, 2019. doi: 10.7717/peerj.6457.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 22 2019, @11:09AM
KEK
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Friday March 22 2019, @04:34PM (2 children)
Incredible that there are fellow human beings interested in the classification of new species and analysis of seemingly any random animal in the wild.
Not only they classify them, they analyze the DNA and trace back lineage. I wonder what are the knock-on effects to the life sciences, of a more comprehensive knowledge of such mundane creatures.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 22 2019, @05:08PM (1 child)
Well, there is some suspicion now, that the lizard people aren't really lizard people. They're frog people.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:10PM
According to the article they are so small they they literally spies us through our pockets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 23 2019, @02:57PM
Any just-discovered species like this has escaped detection precisely because it has limited numbers and specialized habitat.