Newly discovered frog species looks like Kermit
Scientists at the have discovered a new species of frog, and it looks very like the beloved Muppet, Kermit the Frog.
Hyalinobatrachium dianae, named after head researcher鈥檚 mother, Diane, is an inch-long glass frog with . The similarity between H. dianae and its fictional counterpart is most prominent in the bulbous white eyes with black pupils.
The team of researchers, including lead author Brian Kubicki, Stanley Salazar, and Robert Puschendorf, in the February 2015 issue of Zootaxa.
H. dianae was able to avoid detection for years because of its unusual mating call, which sounds more like that of an insect. The frog's unique call, a pulsating metallic whistle used by males to attract females,聽was one of the factors that allowed the researchers to conclude that they had in fact found a new species.
鈥淚t鈥檚 advertisement call is quite unique,鈥� Kubicki said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 different than any other species that has been discovered.鈥�
Additional morphological and genetic differences between H. dianae and other glass frogs also indicated that this frog was a separate species,
Researchers are unsure what purpose the frog鈥檚 translucent skin serves, although they believe that it may aid in camouflage.
Of the 149 species of glass frogs in the world, 14 of them reside in Costa Rica, with the others scattered throughout South and Central America. Although Costa Rica is a common research destination for scientists who study frogs, this particular species is the first glass frog discovered in the country since 1973.
The frog was discovered in the largely unexplored Caribbean side of the Talamanca mountains, which lie on the border between Costa Rica and Panama.
鈥淲e just needed some fieldwork in these areas that were poorly explored,鈥� Brian Kubicki, the paper鈥檚 lead author, , an聽English-language news site based in Costa Rica.
This is the team's second breakthrough of the year. In March, Kubicki and Salazar published a paper on their discovery of the first specimens of Ecnomiohyla bailarina, a fringe-limbed treefrog, outside of Panama, where the species was discovered in 2014.
