CAN YOU SEE ME? | ANIMAL CAMOUFLAGE: Colorful toad rediscovered

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Buck

Despite being colorful, the Sambas stream toad blends into its mossy, arboreal habitat. This species was recently rediscovered after more than 85 years of absence. More via the New York Times:

The Borneo rainbow toad, with its long spindly legs, looks a bit like an Abstract Expressionist canvas splattered in bright green, purple and red. But when this amphibian was last seen, in 1924, the painter Jackson Pollock was just 12, and the only image of the mysterious creature was a black-and-white sketch.

That changed this summer when the toad was rediscovered high in the ridges of the Gunung Penrissen range of Western Sarawak, between Sarawak State in Malaysia and Kalimantan Barat Province in Indonesia. Because of market demand for bright-colored amphibians, which are sold as pets, Indraneil Das, a herpetologist at the University of Malaysia at Sarawak who led the research team that found the toad, declined to be more specific about the location, saying only that it was spotted about six feet up a tree in that region on the night of June 12 by one of his graduate students, Pui Yong Min.

Continue reading this article at the New York Times.

See more animal camouflage here on The Conservation Report.

PICS OF THE DAY: Eastern narrowmouth toad

Posted on May 13, 2011 by Buck

I discovered this little guy while planting my tomatoes today. It’s an eastern narrowmouth toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis). It had buried itself into the dirt. Luckily, my shovel narrowly missed the little frog. These plump, little frogs love to eat ants, and “the skin secretions of narrowmouth toads can be irritating to human eyes and mucous membranes.”

NEW SPECIES of frogs discovered in Madagascar and India

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Buck

Blommersia angolafa image via Franco Andreone

Blommersia angolafa, a newly described species of frog from Madagascar, has the unique habit of rearing its eggs and tadpoles in fallen leaf litter. More via the BBC:

After mating, female frogs lay clutches of 2-10 yellowish eggs within a brown jelly onto the insides of dead leaves of three different palm species.

The frogs lay their eggs a few millimetres above the surface of water pooling in the leaf, which then hatch into tadpoles.

During their surveys, the researchers found egg clutches, tadpoles, new metamorphosised froglets and adult males and females within the dead leaves, including males calling out for a mate.

More often than not, males were found alongside the eggs and tadpoles, suggesting that males may guard the eggs and offspring.

No B. angolafa frogs were found living among the crowns of the palm trees or anywhere outside the dead leaves on the forest floor.

Nor did any other frog species inhabit the dead leaves.

Four other frog species are known to reproduce in fallen dry plant matter: three species breed in the fruit capsules of the Brazil nut tree, while another breeds in tree holes, empty nuts and occasionally snail shells.

But B. angolafa is the first known to breed in fallen dead leaves.

Raorchestes resplendens is a new species of frog described from India, and given the species vibrant coloration, it’s certainly reminiscent of the Mantella species that are endemic from Madagascar or the poison dart frogs of Central and South America. Furthermore, this species appears to be restricted to a very tiny area within India. More via AHN:

A new species of frog, bright reddish-orange in color, has been discovered in a national park in southern India’s Western Ghats mountain range.

Named Raorchestes resplendens, the frogs are physically unlike any known member of the frog family. They are distinguishable not only by their bright-colored bodies but also their multiple glands and extremely short limbs.

This new species of frog is restricted to less than 3 square kilometers of the highest mountain peak of the Western Ghats, Anaimudi, in Eravikulam National Park. The team of scientists that discovered this species called for “immediate conservation” of the Raorchestes frogs.

Paper: A ground-dwelling rhacophorid frog from the highest mountain peak of the Western Ghats of India

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