New species of rain frog found — that can't jump or hop
It's been named Breviceps batrachophiliorum, which means 'frog-loving people' in Latin, because it was found by frog enthusiasts, not scientists.
A group of nature lovers in KwaZulu-Natal province went in search of Bilbo's rain frogs, named after Bilbo Baggins from JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, and in 2018 they found the new frog by accident.
Nicknamed the Boston rain frog, after a village in the high-altitude grasslands where it lives, it has now been confirmed as a unique species after studies on its call and genetics.
The Boston rain frog is 35mm, eats mainly termites and other small insects, and can't hop but can only walk, according to Louis du Preez, the professor of zoology at North-West University in South Africa who led the research.
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'It's a bloated little golf ball with short legs,' du Preez explained. He said that while the Boston rain frog, like most frogs, has poison in its skin, its camouflage colouring and the fact it lives in a burrow are its main protection against predators.
The Boston rain frog is from the same African Breviceps genus as the Bilbo's rain frog. Frogs from this group are burrowers that live underground except for when they surface to feed or breed — hence one species being named after a hobbit.
They lay their eggs in underground chambers and their tadpoles emerge and complete their development not in the water but in a mass of foam in the nest chamber.
Asked what the main significance of his research was, du Preez said: 'It's definitely that it is a threatened species … so from a conservation respect it's very important.'
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Because the species is believed only to be found in a limited geographic range, du Preez says that it warrants inclusion on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list, for species threatened with extinction.
The frog's discovery also reveals that the population of Bilbo's rain frogs is smaller than previously believed.
Each frog species has a unique call, and du Preez found that the Boston rain frog's call had been recorded previously, during a 1999 survey near Boston village. However, no specimens were found at the time so researchers tentatively assigned the call to a Bilbo's rain frog.
That this has now been disproved means the area where the Bilbo's rain frog is actually found is smaller than previously thought, du Preez said, 'so suddenly Bilbo goes up to critically endangered'.
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