Connect with us

Published

on

Researchers at Australia’s Queensland Museum have found a new, adorable frog species in the swampy, lowland forests of New Guinea. Named the “chocolate frog”, it has big, cartoonish eyes and its skin is the colour of milk chocolate. The candy-coloured amphibian is closely related to the green tree frog that’s common in Australia. The researchers discovered the frog while trying to draw a clearer family picture of the lineage of the green tree frog on both islands. Australia and New Guinea were connected by a land bridge until about 10,000 years ago and have hosted many of the same types of animals, including frogs.

These amphibians, known for their jumping abilities and croaking sounds, live all over the world and are among the most diverse animals, with over 6,000 species. The new species was first described by the researchers in a study published recently in the Australian Journal of Zoology. These researchers travelled to New Guinea and found the ‘chocolate frog’ in a hot swamp full of crocodiles.

Lead study author Paul Oliver, a biologist at Queensland Museum and Griffith University, told Queensland Museum Network that once the researchers saw the new species, they started calling it ‘chocolate frog’, and the name got stuck. Liver added, “What’s a little surprising about this discovery is that the well-known and common green tree frog of Australia has a long-overlooked relative living in the lowland rainforests of New Guinea. Because of this, we named the new frog Litoria Mira because the word ‘Mira’ means surprised or strange in Latin.”

Steve Richards, the co-author of the paper, said the researchers thought the species was probably widespread in New Guinea. “While New Guinea is not a place most Australians know well, many animal groups are shared. So, understanding biodiversity in New Guinea helps us to understand the history and origins of Australia’s unique fauna,” Richards said in a statement.

Queensland Museum CEO Jim Thompson said there is still much to learn about biodiversity in Australia and museums play an important role in “describing and conserving our natural world heritage.”


Interested in cryptocurrency? We discuss all things crypto with WazirX CEO Nischal Shetty and WeekendInvesting founder Alok Jain on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on Twitter, Facebook, and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Facebook Marketplace in EU, UK Antitrust Crosshairs Over Use of Classified Ad Data

FBI Says It Is Investigating About 100 Types of Ransomware, Many Trace Back to Actors in Russia: Report

Continue Reading

Science

Planets Could Create Their Own Water While Forming, Expanding Possibilities for Habitable Worlds

Published

on

By

Lab experiments show planets can generate water during formation, not just via comets. This suggests habitable conditions may be widespread in the galaxy, expanding possibilities for life-friendly exoplanets.

Continue Reading

Science

NASA’s ESCAPADE Mission Will Send Twin Probes to Uncover Mars’s Atmospheric Secrets

Published

on

By

NASA’s ESCAPADE mission will launch twin mini-satellites, Blue and Gold, to Mars aboard Blue Origin’s New Glenn. The probes will study how solar wind stripped away Mars’s atmosphere and water, helping scientists understand the Red Planet’s lost climate and its transformation into the dry world we see today.

Continue Reading

Science

Webb Finds Phosphorus-Bearing Gas in an Ancient Brown Dwarf

Published

on

By

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected phosphine (PH₃) in the atmosphere of the ancient brown dwarf Wolf 1130C, about 54 light-years away in Cygnus. This marks the first confirmed detection of a phosphorus-bearing gas in such a metal-poor object. The finding surprises astronomers, as phosphine was previously undetected in similar brown dwarfs, challenging …

Continue Reading

Trending