Four new species of see-through frogs, three of which reveal green bones, have been discovered by researchers in northern Peru.
Showing their beating hearts and other body organs in x-ray detail, the newfound amphibians belong to the aptly named glass frog family (Centrolenidae).
Uncovered during extensive surveys in the Peruvian Andes, the “four remarkable species” were described August 12 in the journal Zootaxa.
The tiny frogs, which live alongside streams, include Centrolene charapita—named for a chili pepper that the yellow splotches on the back of this species resemble. Curiously, the two specimens that were collected had hind legs lined with fleshy, zigzag protuberances.
“We have no clue” why that is, acknowledged study co-author Santiago Castroviejo-Fisher, a herpetologist at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Of the 150 known species of glass frogs, “less than ten have such ornamentation,” he said.
Fellow discoverer Evan Twomey, a frog researcher at East Carolina University in North Carolina, speculated that the leg frills could help to break up the frog’s outline and mask it from predators. “That’s a possibility, but it’s hard to know,” he said.
Showing their beating hearts and other body organs in x-ray detail, the newfound amphibians belong to the aptly named glass frog family (Centrolenidae).
Uncovered during extensive surveys in the Peruvian Andes, the “four remarkable species” were described August 12 in the journal Zootaxa.
The tiny frogs, which live alongside streams, include Centrolene charapita—named for a chili pepper that the yellow splotches on the back of this species resemble. Curiously, the two specimens that were collected had hind legs lined with fleshy, zigzag protuberances.
“We have no clue” why that is, acknowledged study co-author Santiago Castroviejo-Fisher, a herpetologist at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. Of the 150 known species of glass frogs, “less than ten have such ornamentation,” he said.
Fellow discoverer Evan Twomey, a frog researcher at East Carolina University in North Carolina, speculated that the leg frills could help to break up the frog’s outline and mask it from predators. “That’s a possibility, but it’s hard to know,” he said.
