10 New Amphibian Species Discovered

[Kurt]

10 New Amphibian Species Discovered

WASHINGTON (Feb. 2) - Ten new species of amphibians -- including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs -- have been discovered in the mountains of Colombia, conservationists said Monday.

http://news.aol.com/article/new-amph...977x1201229996

[tylototriton]

I always get so excited by these finds. Its my secret dream to be a part of one of those discoveries someday. Well I guess it's not a secret anymore. Hahah. Very exciting though.

Alex

[Kurt]

Some colleagues of mine just got back from Honduras where they did a survey. I was so jealous. They will be doing a presentation soon on the trip.

[tylototriton]

I'm actually heading down to Costa Rica in March. This is my second trip and i'm really excited. Granted, the chances of finding "new" species is slim to none, but we found some incredible finds last year. We found an Anotheca spinosa, only the second specimen found in this area, Bothriechis schlegelii "oropel" which isn't that rare, but still pretty uncommon, and Chironius grandisquamis, a keelback species which had never been found in the area. Just to brag, I found those two snakes. We also found an awesome Bolitoglossa (I wanna say striatula, but I don't remember). Surprisingly it isn't that expensive. Round trip tickets run around $350 and the place i'm staying is $50 a night. Sorry for rambling, tropical herpetology gets me a little excited. Hahah

Alex

[Kurt]

Sorry for rambling, tropical herpetology gets me a little excited. Hahah

It's quite ok. I am getting excited for you. If I were going, I seriously would want to find some Agalychnis annae. Of course I would want to see some Agalychnis callydrias and Oophaga pumilio. Maybe you will get super lucky and find some living Bufo periglenes!

[tylototriton]

Its funny, I was just looking at Savage's book on Costa Rican herps last night thinking about how nice it would be to find annae or calcarifer. There are plenty of callidryas and Oophaga pumilio where i'm going though.

Alex

[Kurt]

There are plenty of callidryas and Oophaga pumilio where i'm going though.

Bring me back some pumilio. I already have 4 callidryas, though I guess I could always use more. Would love to have some annae.

By the way, Agalychnis calcarifer has been moved to a new genus, along with A. craspedopus. The new genus is Cruziohyla. The rest of Agalychnis remains the same.

[tylototriton]

Honestly these are the prettiest and brightest colored pumilios I have ever seen. They are true blue jeans variety and the contrast of the bright red and vibrant blue is shocking. I wish I had some pictures from last year but i'll definitely have some from this year. I finally broke down and bought a DSLR.

Honestly I am so behind on all these taxonomical changes. By time I finally figure this round out they'll be changed again. I'm still getting used to Oophaga.

Alex

[Kurt]

Honestly I am so behind on all these taxonomical changes. By time I finally figure this round out they'll be changed again. I'm still getting used to Oophaga.

I hear you. I do my best to keep up with it. My theory is that somewhere, someone is so bored with there job at the museum/university that they feel the need to shake things up a bit and thats why we get new names. LOL

[John]

Moved to the press section.

[Kurt]

I didn't know there was a press section.

[John]

Yeah, I like having one - it's nice to keep up on interesting frog/amphibian news. We have one over at caudata.org and it's been very popular over the last 7 or 8 years.