Latest news with #Salamandra
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Science
- Miami Herald
Creature found on ‘rainy night' in Panama may be oldest ever known. See ‘Nelson'
On a 'very rainy night' in western Panama, herpetologists searching a forest reserve saw something in the darkness. It was a small, brownish frog hopping across the road, and the reptile and amphibian researchers captured the animal for a closer look. It was a known species — Ctenophryne aterrima — but this find marked the first time the frog was spotted in Panama, previously making appearances in Costa Rica and Colombia. The day was July 24, 1987, and when the frog was entered into the scientific record, the researchers couldn't have known that it would go on to be one of the longest living tropical frogs ever recorded. 'It is generally understood that (frogs and toads) inhabiting cool or temperate regions, whether latitudinally or altitudinally, tend to reach higher ages than those living in warm and hot areas,' Karl-Heinz Jungfer, one of the herpetologists who collected the frog, wrote in an Aug. 15 correspondence published in the peer-reviewed journal Salamandra. The male frog, measuring about 2.2 inches long from snout to legs, would have been preserved, but due to time constraints, it was instead taken to Germany alive and placed in a moist terrarium, according to the paper. Researchers fed it crickets and fruit flies. Before long, it was part of the lab. The frog was called Nelson, the 'only frog ever to have a nickname at our lab,' Jungfer told McClatchy News in an email. Nelson was already an adult when he was collected, but in the next four years of his life, he grew a few more millimeters before stopping at 2.3 inches long, according to the paper. The researchers learned more about Nelson over the next few decades. 'No advertisement call was ever heard, but this is no surprise, for no 'rainy season' was ever induced by artificial 'rain' that could have simulated a breeding season,' Jungfer wrote. Nelson gladly took food, typically gobbling it up with his tongue instead of holding it in his mouth, according to the paper. He had favorites, preferring light-colored prey to darker colors. Seven years after Nelson was first collected, he was put in an outdoor terrarium, Jungfer wrote. Then, the temperatures outside reached lower than 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and he became 'so stiff and hardly able to move,' which caused him to be 'promptly' moved back inside. Ten years after Nelson joined the lab, the researchers found a lesion on his skin that they successfully treated with antibiotics, according to the paper. In July 2016, Nelson had been living in captivity for 29 years, Jungfer wrote, and researchers noticed that his right eye was missing. The other eye, Nelson's left, became severely swollen in 2024, rendering him blind as far as the researchers could tell. 'For feeding, (Nelson) had to be placed in a small plastic box, where it caught prey when it made contact with the frog's fingers,' Jungfer wrote. 'Nonetheless, it was able to locate its usual hiding places after feeding.' In June 2024, Nelson was found dead in his terrarium, making him 38 years old at the time of death, according to the paper. He spent a total of 36 years and 11 months in captivity, researchers said. Nelson is believed to be 'among the oldest (frogs and toads) known, and among tropical species, by far the most long-lived one,' according to the paper. 'In contrast to frogs in the wild, numerous individual frogs living under captive conditions are more long-lived than those recorded in the wild,' Jungfer wrote. 'This increased longevity can be explained by the absence of predation, stable environmental conditions and food supply, as long as the husbandry requirements are adequately met.' Previous reports say a Bufo bufo frog once lived to be 36 years old, an Anaxyrus americanus lived to 30 years old and a Bombina variegata was 29 years old at the time of its death, according to the paper. But 38-year-old Nelson, according to academic reports, has now taken the record. Nelson was found in Provincia de Chiriquí along Panama's southwestern coast.
Miami Herald
19-02-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
Tiny creature crawls to top of logs to call in Madagascar. See newly discovered species
Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park, in northwestern Madagascar, is filled with breathtaking shards of karst limestone. Creating a landscape of sharp, jutting rock, centuries of erosion have eaten away at the soft stone, and walls of rock are pocketed by nooks and caves. When it rains in the park, the males of a tiny amphibious species emerge from the rocky caves, searching for an elevated log or ledge. They make their way to the top, then let out a call. The sound comes from Anilany karsticola, a newly discovered species of microhylid frog, barely longer than a fingernail, according to a Feb. 15 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Salamandra. Researchers first discovered the frog in an expedition to the park in 2006 but identified it as another similar species found in the central highlands of Madagascar, herpetologist and evolutionary biologist Mark Scherz wrote in a Feb. 14 post on his website. The frog had identifiable toe pads on only two of its four fingers, Scherz said, but the geographic isolation between this frog and other related species raised questions. Researchers then started searching through images posted on iNaturalist, a wildlife website where members can submit and identify photos of animals from around the world. The photos were tagged with geographic locations, many of which were far from where the identified species were known to live, Scherz said. 'In the end, it became clear that the population from the Tsingy de Bemaraha really is a distinct species, which we have named Anilany karsticola in reference to the karsts in which it dwells,' Scherz wrote. The frog has a slightly larger body size than related species, between 0.6 and 0.7 inches long, with an elongated body and rounded snout, according to the study. The frog has a 'reddish-brown' back with 'small bluish spots' on its sides, according to the study. 'The species inhabits a karstic limestone environment, with all eleven specimens collected near or within caves at Tsingy de Bemaraha National Park. It is quite common in Bemaraha on both sides of Manambolo river,' researchers said. 'This species was very active after rain in late afternoon and in the evening. Males called sitting on logs or on tsingy rocks at 0.5–1 m above forest floor. Individuals were never seen calling from the leaf litter on the forest floor.' Tsingy is a Malagasy word meaning 'where one cannot walk barefoot' and refers to the sharp, tall rock formations found in the karst environment. Researchers, however, still have a lot of unanswered questions. 'How could such a small frog, which also almost certainly breeds in terrestrial nests, have managed to cover so much distance, most of which is unsuitable habitat, and moreover live under such different conditions as the coastal and highland forests? After all, very few members of the similarly miniaturised genus Stumpffia occur over more than a few dozen kilometres distance, let alone hundreds of kilometres—micro-endemism is generally thought to be the rule in this Madagascar-endemic subfamily of microhylid frogs,' Scherz wrote. The discovery might also impact the conservation status of related species Anilany helenae, Scherz said, currently listed as a critically endangered species. 'Should we still consider it critically endangered when it might occur over such a large area?' Scherz asked. 'A lot more work needs to be done on the populations from the northwest, and exploration needs to be undertaken in areas where these frogs have not yet been sought, in order to give the answers we are looking for.' Madagascar is an island nation off the east coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. The research team includes Scherz, Alice Petzold, Frank Glaw, Katherine E. Mullin, Andolalao Rakotoarison, Achille P. Raselimanana, Angelica Crottini, Pablo Orozco-terWengel, Jörn Köhler, David Prötzel, Miguel Vences and Michael Hofreiter.
