A new species of frog undergoes a remarkable transformation as it grows into an adult, report scientists.
Shiny black juvenile frogs with yellow spots dramatically change into peach coloured adults with bright blue eyes.
Scientists discovered the unique frog in a remote part of Papua New Guinea.
The bright pattern of the young frog could act as a warning colouration to predators, they say, but it is a mystery why the adult then loses this colour.
The obviously unusual biology of this frog made its discovery especially exciting
Dr Fred Kraus
Bishop Museum, Hawaii, US
Amphibian species come in a range of colours and patterns, from the brightly patterned poison dart frogs to the plainer greens of the common toad.
After metamorphosising from a tadpole, some frogs change in colour as they get older.
However, it is unknown for juveniles and adults of a species to have strikingly different colour and pattern schemes.
The research team came across the new species of frog Oreophryne ezra while on a expedition to find new species on Sudest Island, Louisiade Archipelago, off the south-eastern tip of New Guinea.
Of the new species they found, the frog particularly caught their attention.
Remarkable new ‘Colour changing’ frog discovered on New Guinea island: here.
Scientists have revealed how frogs perform the architectural feat of building floating foam nests: here.
Amnesty International has called on the government of Papua New Guinea to investigate police brutality and possible collusion with foreign mining corporations after officers illegally evicted families living next to a gold mine: here.
Under the provincial road N310 between Elspeet and Nunspeet, a herpetoduct has been built. A herpetoduct is a tunnel for beetles, snakes and other reptiles, amphibians and insects. The herpetoduct in the Veluwe is the first of its kind in the Netherlands, the province and the municipality Nunspeet, who paid the construction, said.
Reptiles and amphibians needs tunnels with daylight. There also should be no difference between the temperature inside the tunnel and outside. The tunnel builders have solved this by building an underpass under the road, which has a roof only where the road and bike paths cross the tunnel. Conservation organization RAVON has advised the builders on the construction of the herpetoduct.
The tunnel for reptiles and amphibians under the N310 has become so big that even sheep can pass through. That’s fine, according to the local authority of Nunspeet, because the busy Veluwe road separates two parts of the Elspeter Heath. The heath is a big sheep grazing area, where the sheep will now be able to cross safely as well.
The province of Gelderland has plans to build more herpetoducts on the Ginkel Heath near Ede. The province was also the first one in the Netherlands to have a wildlife bridge built across the A50 highway. Meanwhile, there are more nature bridges, and also over a hundred badger tunnels under smaller roads.
Photos: expedition in Ecuador reveals numerous new species in threatened cloud forest
Jeremy Hance
January 14, 2010
An expedition into rainforests on Ecuador’s coast by Reptile & Amphibian Ecology (RAEI) International have revealed a number of possible new species including a blunt-snouted, slug-eating snake; four stick insects; and up to 30 new ‘rain’ frogs.
The blunt-snouted snake, which feeds on gastropods like slugs, is especially interesting, as its closest relative is in Peru, 350 miles away. In addition, a fifteen-year-old volunteer with the organization found a snake that specializes on snails. The researchers are unsure of this is a new species: the closest similar snake is 600 miles away in Panama.
So-called ‘rain frogs’, of which the expedition may have discovered 30 new species, lay their eggs in trees, instead of in water. When they hatch the young frogs are not tadpoles, but actual mini-versions of adults. The frogs require moist forests in order to breed successfully, researchers fear that climate change could make the forests drier.
“There is obviously a great concern that these species will disappear as soon as, or even before, they are formally described by science,” said expedition leader Dr. Paul S. Hamilton of RAEI.
Many of the new species were found on a single mountain rising to 800 meters, called Cerro Pata de Pájaro. A few square miles of cloud forest blanket the mountain’s peak.
This forest and other lowland rainforests nearby are threatened by deforestation for cattle grazing, logging, and hunting according to RAEI. In addition, rising temperatures could force ecosystems, such as Cerro Pata de Pájaro’s tiny cloud forest, higher and higher up the mountain until there is no-where to go. Already researchers in the tropics have found plants moving upslope to keep up with temperatures.
“The good news is, the animals are still there and alive, so there is still time to save them from extinction,” said Dr. Kerry Kriger, Executive Director of the nonprofit advocacy organization Save the Frogs. “But we need to take action now to make it happen.”
ScienceDaily (Jan. 19, 2010) — A team of scientists has documented that Yasuní National Park, in the core of the Ecuadorian Amazon, shatters world records for a wide array of plant and animal groups, from amphibians to trees to insects: here.
“It is a unique discovery. So far we’ve found fossilized ammonites and fragments of fish here but not a whole fish,” says Stefan Karst, geologist from the Lublin mine. The fossil was found 600 metres underground.
Over 250 million years ago the area where the copper mine is located was covered by a shallow tropical sea. Gradually the level of the sea reduced until it completely dried out.
“Everything that settled on the sea bed was preserved by layers of deposit from consecutive geological periods,” explains Pawel Raczynski from the Geology Institute at the University of Wroclaw.
Last week, paleontologists released news of tetrapod prints discovered in the Holy Cross Mountains of southeastern Poland, which proves that animals crawled out of water and on to land 18 million years earlier than was previous supposed.
This video says about itself:
The oldest evidence of four-legged animals walking on land has been discovered in southeast Poland.
Rocks from a disused quarry record the “footprints” of unknown creatures that lived about 397 million years ago.
Rotting Fish Heads: Novel Studies of Decomposition Shed New Light on Our Earliest Fossil Ancestry: here.
A drop in global oxygen levels may have led to air-breathing marine animals 375 million years ago, said scientists, challenging the theory that it evolved in frolicking freshwater fish: here.
The King demoiselle is not just one type of fish, but three distinct groups that recently split from each other, according to a new study: here.
Fossil footprints give land vertebrates a much longer history
11 January 2010
The discovery of fossil footprints from early backboned land animals in Poland leads to the sensational conclusion that our ancestors left the water at least 18 million years earlier than previously thought. The results of the Polish-Swedish collaboration are published online this week in Nature.
- These results force us to reconsider our whole picture of the transition from fish to land animals, says Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University, one of the two leaders of the study.
For nearly eighty years, palaeontologists have been scouring the planet for fossil bones and skeletons of the earliest land vertebrates or ‘tetrapods‘ - the ultimate progenitors of all later amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals including ourselves. Their discoveries have suggested that the first tetrapods evolved relatively rapidly from lobe-finned fishes, through a short-lived intermediate stage represented by ‘elpistostegids‘ such as Tiktaalik, about 380 million years ago. But there is another potential source of information about the earliest tetrapods: the fossilised footprints they left behind. In the new study a Polish-Swedish team describe a rich and securely dated footprint locality from Zachelmie Quarry in Poland that pushes back the origin of tetrapods a full 18 million years beyond the earliest skeletal evidence and forces a dramatic reassessment of the transition from water to land.
The trackways show that large tetrapods, up to three metres in length, inhabited the marine intertidal zone during the early Middle Devonian some 395 million years ago.
- This means not that not only tetrapods but also elpistostegids originated much earlier than we thought, because the position of elpistostegids as evolutionary precursors of tetrapods is not in doubt, and so they must have existed at least as long, says Per Ahlberg.
The elpistostegids, it seems, were not at all a short-lived transitional stage but must have existed alongside their descendants the tetrapods for at least 10 million years. The environment is also a major surprise: almost all previous scenarios for the origin of tetrapods have placed this event in a freshwater setting and have associated it with the development of land vegetation and a terrestrial ecosystem.
- Instead, our distant ancestors may first have left the water in order to feed on stranded marine life left behind by the receding tide, says Per Ahlberg.
Frog embryos listen for bad vibrations to avoid snakes
* 11:33 09 December 2009 by Shanta Barley
To escape being a snake’s lunch, tree frog embryos listen out for bad vibrations.
The jelly-coated eggs of the Central American red-eyed tree frog are laid on vegetation overhanging ponds and can hatch up to three days early if they sense that a snake is approaching. Michael Caldwell at Boston University and colleagues wanted to know how they distinguished between predators and false alarms like torrential rain.
They collected Agalychnis callidryas egg clutches, still on their leaves, from Panama and exposed them to either vibrations at frequencies lower than 100 hertz, which are typical of snake attacks, or rain-like recordings which varied between 0 and 500 hertz. In each case they counted how many eggs hatched early. In a second experiment they played recordings that either started abruptly, like a snake attack, or gained intensity gradually, like rain.
The team found that snake-like vibrations induced the eggs to hatch earlier. They suggest that the embryos can distinguish two characteristics of rain – a pattern of low and high frequency vibrations that increase slowly in amplitude.
Tadpoles prematurely ejected into ponds are poorly equipped to flee fish, says co-author Karen Warkentin, also at Boston University, but this adaptation prevents a snake destroying an entire brood.
The new study supports the split of carnivores into two main evolutionary groups: dog-like carnivores called Caniforms and cat-like carnivores called Feliforms.
But it did throw up a few surprises (see Confused carnivores), which the researchers say will need further research to resolve.
As well as unpicking the relationships between carnivores, the study enabled the team to identify those species that are unusually distinct.
Among these unique carnivores are the monk seal, giant otter and sea otter, giant and red panda , spectacled bear, Liberian mongoose, otter civet, Owston’s palm civet, the fossa of Madagascar, which looks much like a dog that climbs trees, and the binturong of south-east Asia, which is also called the Asian bearcat. …
CONFUSED CARNIVORES
The new study generally supports the traditional carnivores groups. However, it also finds that:
The kinkajou of South America is not related to racoons as thought
The red panda may actually be most closely related to dogs and their relatives
South American jaguars are more closely related to Asian leopards and snow leopards than other big cats …
In a separate but related effort, the Zoological Society of London runs an EDGE (Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered) of Existence programme that highlights the precarious conservation status of a range of animals beyond the carnivores.
A report reveals that female giant pandas use chirp calls to inform male pandas exactly how fertile they are: here.
A Somerset wildlife charity has taken in a record number of otters this winter as higher than normal river levels have threatened their habitat: here.
Genome mapping showing that [giant] pandas may prefer a bamboo-based diet because they can’t taste meat could unlock secrets to ensuring the survival of the endangered species: here.
California sea otters cross over to the forbidden zone”: here.
November 2009. The first bittern of the season was seen flying over WWT London Wetland Centre on 16 October, earlier than ever. It has now settled amongst the reeds. The bird has been arriving earlier and earlier in the year since it first appeared in 2002. It is not known why this pattern of early arrival seems to be emerging, but speculation at the centre points to weather patterns and winds on the continent, where this individual is believed to come from. The London Wetland Centre in Barnes is one of a very few locations in London to see a bittern, and certainly the closest the bird gets to the City centre.
Excellent predator
Keen birdwatchers at the centre have seen the bird several times in the Wildside of the reserve where it is likely to stay until February or March. Expectation is high for one or two more bitterns to fly into the centre, as there were three visiting the centre in 2008. Bitterns usually take a few weeks to find their winter feeding spot, but once they do they remain in their territory through the winter. The birds are excellent predators, feeding mostly on perch, but also prey on roach, frogs, eels and small birds. Known as shy creatures, they are excellent camouflage artists concealing themselves from larger predators and humans.
“The centre has been attracting high numbers of wintering birds in the past few weeks, and the bittern always brings excitement to the reserve because it is such a rare bird in the UK. Nationally significant duck numbers have already been reached, with hundreds of gadwall and shoveller seen on the main lake,” said Adam Salmon, Reserve Manager. “Other highlights include good counts of arriving redwing and Cetti’s warblers. There are still chiffchaff and blackcap around, some of which may over-winter, siskin and lesser redpoll are feeding now through the birch trees.”
Visitors can take in all the sights of the autumn migrations on self-guided tours through the site, or book a Wildlife Walk for Members tour on 7 November and 5 December. An introductory birdwatching course is being held on 10 January.
January 2010. WWT London Wetland Centre is having a bumper winter for bitterns this year. Normally home to just one of these elusive birds from the heron family, this winter is seeing a bittern bonanza with the centre offering shelter for up to five at a time: here.
Each autumn, in the northern hemisphere, a mass exodus commences; Northern Saw-whet Owls Aegolius acadius depart their breeding grounds in the boreal forest belt of Canada and the northern United States for more temperate climes in which to pass the winter months: here.
Tanzania: November 11, 2009. Crowned Cranes, Common Swifts and Palearctic passerines by the Mara River: here.
Birds of prey continue to be killed, despite the fact it is illegal and has been for decades. We are calling for an end to this unacceptable cruelty once and for all: here.
The return of bitterns and red kites to the UK countryside is the bird conservation success story of the Noughties, according to a review of the decade by the RSPB: here.
Recently, in Blijdorp zoo, two Chinese crocodile lizards have been born. After some of those special reptiles were born in 1987 and 1989, at last, after twenty years, there is success! … The people can see the Chinese crocodile lizards in the Rivièrahal. …
Chinese crocodile lizards are rare, both in the wild [China and Vietnam] and in zoos. … At the moment, in 10 European zoos, just 30 animals live (including six adult lizards plus the two babies in Blijdorp). Births are rare.
A FLESH-EATING plant, the fast-talking tree frog and one of the world’s most venomous snakes are among at least 1,300 new plant and animal species discovered in Australia over the past decade, according to a new report from the World Wildlife Federation.
The report highlights the discovery of over a thousand plants, 195 fish, 74 reptiles, 13 amphibians and seven mammals. “The extent of Australia’s rich biodiversity is astounding,” said Michael Roache, threatened species programme manager of WWF-Australia.
“This report shows that we have discovered an average of at least two new species a week every year for the past 10 years . . . But this could just be the tip of the iceberg. There could be thousands more out there.”
Mr Roache says the fast-talking tree frog is not even the most interesting frog discovered. “It’s just got a very fast, trilling call,” he told The Irish Times. “The name sounds cooler than the species might be.
“A more interesting discovery is the northern stony-creek frog. The males and females are brown for most of the year, but males turn yellow during breeding season.
“He then turns bright yellow when coupling with the female. It’s a good thing humans don’t do that,” said Mr Roache.
While flesh-eating plants have a long history as B-movie staples, the Nepenthes tenax, better known as the pitcher plant, was only discovered in 2006 in Cape York, far north Queensland. It can grow up to one metre tall – far greater than the usual 15cm limit for such plants – and has a taste for small rats, mice, lizards and even birds.
Of more immediate concern to humans is the newly-discovered central ranges Taipan, believed to be one of the world’s most venomous snakes. As well as presenting strange and exotic new flora and faunae to the world, the report says many vital habitats are increasingly endangered.
“Over 1,700 of Australia’s plants and animals are listed by the Australian government as threatened. With the discovery of so many new and exciting species it is crucial that efforts to keep them off the threatened lists are maintained,” said Mr Roache.
