Believed to be extinct for more than 150 years, an unusual species of tree frog has been found alive and well by researchers working in India, and research published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One reveals that it actually represents a new genus of amphibian.
According to National Geographic, the 20 inch (50 cm) long creature was originally known as the Polypedates jerdonii, but lead author Sathyabhama Das Biju, a University of Delhi biologist, and his colleagues have since rechristened the long-lost tree frog Frankixalus jerdonii.
The creature’s DNA and anatomy, as well as unusual feeding behavior that involves the mother laying eggs for her offspring to eat, “represents a deep evolutionary split in tree frog evolution,” co-author Ines Van Bocxlae from the Amphibian Evolution Lab at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium told the publication earlier this week.
While most tadpoles eat plants, Das Biju, Van Bocxlae and their colleagues found members of this species hiding in hollow bamboo stems and tree holes and partaking of its unusual diet. The females lay their eggs in these tree hollows, and once tadpoles hatch, they consume unfertilized eggs until they grow larger.
Creatures may be widespread, but still could be in danger
The tree frogs were first spotted as part of an expedition that started in 2007, according to NPR and BBC News, and while they were found in the jungles of India’s West Bengal state, Das Biju believes that they might be living in a vast area ranging that includes China and Thailand.
The tree holes which Frankixalus jerdonii calls home can be up to 19 feet (6 m) above ground, which the study authors believe may help explain why the creatures remained undetected for so long. Each of the tadpoles discovered had between three and 19 eggs in their intestines, and did not have tooth rows like other species of frogs, the researchers said.
While Das Biju called the find “exciting,” he emphasized that this does not mean that the species is safe. In fact, the BBC said that some of the forest areas where his team collected specimens of the amphibians in 2007-08 were cut down and burned for agricultural development back in 2014, and that the rest of the region’s tropical forests were also in peril due to human expansion.
Frankixalus jerdonii was originally named Polypedates jerdonii in honor of Thomas Jerdon, the British zoologist who had collected the first known specimens of the creature in 1870, according to BBC News. Also known as Jerdon’s tree frog, the behavior of the frog and DNA analysis has led to it being renamed for Das Biju’s former advisor, herpetologist Franky Bossuyt.
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Feature Image: SD Biju, et al.
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