'Unique' frog discovered in India
BBC News (London, UK) May 13th, 2010 05:27 AM: 'Unique' frog discovered in India
A new species of "brightly coloured frog" has been discovered in a remote peak in the southern part of India, scientists have told BBC News.
This reddish orange amphibian, spotted in the Eravaikulam National Park of the Western Ghats mountain range, has been named Raorchestes resplendens.
The scientists found the frog at an altitude of 2698m above sea level on the Anaimudi peak.
It inhabits a very small area of less than three square kilometres.
The discovery was made by a team of scientists including Dr S D Biju, from the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Delhi.
His collaborators were Yogesh Shouche of the National Centre for Cell Sciences in Pune; S Dutta from North Orissa University, Franky Bossuyt of the Free University of Brussels, Belgium and Alain Dubois of the France-based organisation Reptiles et Amphibians.
The frog was initially identified back in 2001. Dr Biju, who led the authentication study, explained that it took almost a decade to show, via careful study of its anatomy and genome, that this brilliantly coloured specimen was in fact a new species.
"This new species of frog has got extremely short limbs and multiple glands and swellings almost like a toad," Dr Biju told BBC News.
The species is a unique new member of the tree frog group, he explained. It is the only tree frog to have what the researchers call "macro glands".
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