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Over 100 Frog Species Discovered in Sri Lanka

Posted by timothy on from the look-but-don't-eat dept.

randomErr writes "An ecological treasure trove of brightly colored and diverse new frog species has been discovered on the tea-plantation-covered island of Sri Lanka. The discovery of more than a hundred new rain-forest species makes the country a new center of frog diversity and increases the urgency for protecting what little forest it retains."

15 of 33 comments (clear)

  1. Are any of them this one? by mhesseltine · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka

    Thank you Trey and Matt.

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  2. Nuclear? by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In all suriousness, the French used to do nuclear testing near Sri-Lanka. COuld these be corrupted genes? If not, where can I be a tree hugger and send money to?

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    1. Re:Nuclear? by m_evanchik · · Score: 2

      I'm not a biologist, but even counting the quick breeding cycle of frogs (1/year?, could speciation occur in such a small amount of time/generations?

      And what nuke tests are you taslking about. France hasn't had any colonial possessions near Sri Lanka for some 200 years or so. And I thought they did all their testing by their Pacific Island possessions and perhaps their North African ones.

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    2. Re:Nuclear? by scheme · · Score: 2
      What about the tests in the 1790s? That was before the atmospheric test ban treaty.

      You mean the nuclear tests the french conducted during the french revolution? Those tests weren't all that big. The French were too busy trying to perfect the guillotine and beheading various nobles.

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    3. Re: Nuclear? by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2, Funny


      > If not, where can I be a tree hugger and send money to?

      You can be a tree hugger in the privacy of your own home, and send your money to me.

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  3. Ambiguous Title. by Gaijin42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The discovery of more than a hundred new rain-forest species...

    The new finding increases the island's previously known tree frog diversity more than fivefold to over 100 species.

    So did they find 100 species, or did they find a few more, bringing the Total to 100. They found at least five, because they talk about some later down, but shoddy reporting...

    Also, what exactly makes a species? Just because they look different doesn't mean they are a different species. White people look alot different from black people. Same species. Did they do DNA comparisons? How different is different?

    This reminds me of the Darwin thing with the birds on the island that gave him the idea of evolution. Most scientists say, if the birds in question weren't so "holy" because of darwin, they wouldn't be classified as different spiecies at all, because the differences are so minor.

    1. Re:Ambiguous Title. by RaboKrabekian · · Score: 2

      That's not entirely accurate. Horses and Donkeys can reproduce, but they are different species as far as I know.

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    2. Re:Ambiguous Title. by belgin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hmm... Mules have been around for three thousand or so years. People were breeding jacks with mares well before the rise of the Roman Republic. The reason is that a horse will literally work itself to death if you keep encouraging it. A donkey frequently won't do any work at all if it can get away with it. A mule will work until it reaches its limits and then stops. If it will harm the mule to keep working, it typically won't go one step farther. Mules also have most of the strength of horses and much of the sure-footedness of donkeys.

      The term mule is used by biologists to indicate any typically sterile cross-species offspring. This is because scientists named this sort of breeding after the classic horse / donkey pair. IIRC, donkeys or ponys can also have mule offspring with zebras.

      A rare few mules were able to breed with donkeys, horses or other mules, but it is in the less than 1% category, IIRC.

      If lions and tigers were discovered today, they would possibly be considered one species, as Ligers and Tigons are fully interbreedable with either parent species.

      For another animal "species" people seem vaguely aware of, oxen are castrated bulls. The difference is that an ox is castrated at a certain point in cattle puberty that casuses it to become immensely muscular due to an excess of testosterone and similar hormones.

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    3. Re:Ambiguous Title. by Bowling+Moses · · Score: 2, Informative

      Nit to pick: Ligers/Tigons can breed with each other or with either parent species, but the result in any case (barring freaks like the equivalent to the very rare fertile mule) is sterile. Personally I love this little fact as it helps to illustrate that biology's got exceptions to lots of little artificial rules and helps to muddy the definition of species a tad. Drives the (unmentionable combiners/perverters of science and religion) nuts.

    4. Re:Ambiguous Title. by belgin · · Score: 2

      Interesting... I didn't realize that the second generation of offspring came out mules...

      That does screw up my view of how cross-species reproduction works. It really makes me wonder why that first generation is so consistantly fertile.

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  4. In addition... by nytes · · Score: 5, Funny

    Discovered in one corner of the plantation were hundreds of used highlighter pens.

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  5. Twisted article. by Perdo · · Score: 4, Informative

    the real story:

    Evaluating Sri Lanka's amphibian diversity

    The national geographic article is fluffy trash drawing conclusions that the scientist involved did not come to.

    "We are destroying enviroment before we even know what we are destroying so give us money so we can save the enviroment."

    Pethiyagoda hypothosizes the exact opposite. That the destruction of corridors of rainforest created islands of rainforest where the frogs species differentiated. The dry land acted like a natural barrier would.

    So, destroy the rainforest but do it in strips so we can artificially create new species to replace the ones we loose in the destruction of the rainforest.

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  6. Frogs still barometers of environmental health? by lute3 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The film 'Red Planet' brings that famous frog phrase to mind..

    Would this diversity indicate...
    1) rapid adaption was necessary in an environment that was becoming more harsh at human hands?
    2) the frogs are flourishing? Is the environment's supposed toxicity is not hampering frogs in nearly profound ways as previously speculated?
    3) there was a miscount in the first place? This is Sri Lanka. Might it have much less biological study than the African Savannah, the Australian Outback, or even the Brazilian rain forest?

  7. A beautiful country by abdulla · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's also a beautiful country in general, besides being war ravaged for the past few decades, it's nice to see the country move on and to have people take interest in it once again.

  8. Slogan by BigT · · Score: 2, Funny

    Do you suppose the phrase "a new center of frog diversity" will be showing up on their tourism literature soon?

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