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New Living Fossil Discovered in India
pyr0 writes "A new species of frog has been discovered in Southern India. This species dates back 130 million years ago, when portions of the supercontinent Gondwana broke away, and was long thought to have been extinct. Its closest relatives are known as 'Sooglossids' and are only found 3000km away on Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The cool thing about this species? It's purple, and has what looks like a snout!"
Old purple frog danced with dinosaurs
Last Updated Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:52:39
BRUSSELS - A bright purple frog shaped like a donut with a pointy snout has been discovered in the mountains of southern India.
The seven-centimeter long amphibian hopped around the feet of dinosaurs. Researchers say the small-headed critter belongs to a new family of frogs thought to have disappeared millions of years ago.
Evolutionary biologist Franky Bossuyt of Free University of Brussels in Belgium and colleague S. D. Biju described the new species in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
The pair discovered the frog in the Western Ghats Mountains of India, one of eight biodiversity hotspots in the world home to unusual species.
Bossuyt says the frog's closest relatives are the Sooglossids, a small and close-knit collection of frogs found only in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.
The Seychelles and India are now separated by 3,000 kilometers of ocean. It's thought the two countries once formed part of a huge landmass which split millions of years ago.
The ancient super-continent of Gondwana included South America, Africa, India, Madagascar and the Seychelles, Australia and Antarctica.
Scientists estimated the frog family tree split about 230 million years ago. The discovery suggests this frog branched off 130 million years ago when Gondwana lost its eastern end.
In the mid 1800s, biologists described 29 families of frogs. Bossuyt and Biju have placed their frog in a new family, based on a DNA analysis.
In a commentary accompanying the study, astrobiologist Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University called the discovery "a once-in-a-century find."
Written by CBC News Online staff
Clearly, God put it there to test our faith.
Wow, when they said a little purple frog with a tiny head and snout, they where NOT kidding. Funny looking little frog.
Now I'm wondering what kind of Croak it makes.
And they tested its DNA, and said it was a different breed of frogs, amazing.
it kinda looks like a purple mole, I want one as a pet.
I Feal Froggy, If i lick it will i see purple frogs?
New Living Fossil Discovered in India!!
/. day today.... i cant wait to know what else is comming up.
Praying Doesn't Help!!!
Very intersting
The lunatic is in my head
I came across another link since submitting the story. This one actually gives the name of this new species: Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis
Project Steve
But does it run linux?
licking it give you hella buzz?
else they would have declared it was deformed because of pollution and started sueing the crap out of everybody.
BC
If a 130 million year old species of frog is so darn purple... wonder what other colors were around back then. Maybe a purple dinosaur isn't so far off. We always assume they were greenish. Hmmmm..
It would be interesting if they could find a 'purple' gene in that frog, and then look for the same gene elsewhere.. see what else might have been purple.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I for one welcome our purple snouted masters.
"Researchers say the small-headed critter belongs to a new family of frogs thought to have disappeared millions of years ago."
That sentence cracks me up. It's so new it disappeared millions of years ago! I know what they meant, but still...
Toad
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!!
words "purple" and "seven-centimeter long", when in one sentence, usually mean it should be filtered by the antispam filter.
It is in India, unlikely to be (a) Christian God.
There are many Christian Gods, A Lutheran God, a Catholic one, a Mormon one, etc. Dont even mention the Trinity Business!
..welcome our purple amphibian overlords
Purple frogs? Sounds like a character from a Dr Suess book to me.
I couldn't think of a sig.
its moch frog.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
so they're trying to tell me that this frog has been pretty much the same for all these millions of years, and meanwhile the earth has undergone all sorts of climate changes and most other species have radically evolved.
is it just me or do things like this make old-earth, macro-evolution theories harder to swallow? of course, i'm not sure how much an ugly purple thing like that helps out the intelligent-design theorists either. when are people gonna start to admit that we just really don't know much about how we (and that frog) got here.
Just in time for Halloween. "Night of the living fossils"
If this frog has seen the continents split, dinosaurs come and go, the rise of the mammals and the evolution of mankind, are we really so arrogant to think that *we* have discovered *it*? I think that the frogs have deemed it time to contact their childish co-planetiods and impart their age-old wisdom to us. It is clear they are intellectually our superior as they have finally given up their game of hide and seek the clear victors. I find it a disgrace that my fellow /.ers are wanting them as pets and generally ridiculing them. We must take them seriously and listen to what they have to say! If they croak, we must follow.
Reality or nothing.
Wikipedia
.pdf or .svg format. I'd give the link there directly, but the Royal Society doesn't do that for some reason. Anyway, the article and the references contained therein might get one up to speed. A more tractable account of modern abiogenesis research is available on talkorigins' own website as well.
talkorigins (one of many)
geology.about.com
Depending on how recent the source and who you talk to, Coelacanth is a name belonging to either a genus or a family, not just one species. There are ~125 species identified from fossils alone, which are used as index fossils; this is not a problem since they are morphologically distinct from each other and the modern coelacanth species.
Abiogenesis has moved on in the 50 years since Miller-Urey. Might I suggest reading a recent article: "On the origins of cells: a hypothesis for the evolutionary transitions from abiotic geochemistry to chemoautotrophic prokaryotes, and from prokaryotes to nucleated cells," it can be found here, just click journals, then Vol 358, January, then pg 59, freely available in
New Living Fossil
How can a fossil be new? Or living?
"I don't accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me Well, you haven't been there, have you? You haven't seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid -- then I can't even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we'd got, and we've now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don't think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. I don't think the matter calls for even-handedness at all." -Douglas Adams
As he said, there IS such a thing as the burden of proof, and this points squarely at Natural Selection as the primary mechanism for how life came to be as it is, and is changing now. Here's another point, and that's: you aren't qualified to make judgements as to the validity of the evidence. If you want to criticize, get a Ph.D. in biology/geology. I don't understand quantum physics, and I find the concepts impossible to understand, and probably always will, but when my physics professor tells me something, I accept it, because he bloody well knows what he's talking about. He's the Ph.D in Nuclear Physics, and until I attain the same level of education as he has, I know I'm not entitled to question it at all.
Science reaches it's conclusions through a concensus of the most educated people on a subject, this is its' great strength.
of a donut, after reading your first sentence I thought of a frog with a pointy snout and a hole in the middle, but alas after looking at the photo I see you ment a jelly (er,frog gut)filled donut. It may not seen like a big deal to you but think of the frog, now discovered, cataloged, probably have a number painted on it,s back and won't be able to get away to pee with out spotlights every where and people thinking he/she has a hole in his/her middle. So Mr./Ms CBS staff do not take your responsibility to your viewers/readers lightly, a donut is not just a donut! You have a lot(more) to learn before (you can confidently) entering the relm of /.
I eat my grapes at room temperature, cuz the cold ones hurt my teeth