Orange-bellied 'starry dwarf frog' discovered in Indian mountains.

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Astrobatrachus kurichiyanalurks in leaf litter and is sole member of an ancient lineage.

Astrobatrachus kurichiyanawas found in the Western Ghats mountain range by Indian and US researchers. Photograph: SP Vijayakumar/PA
▼ An orange-bellied frog with a brown back, covered in tiny spots that resemble a starry sky, has been discovered in a mountain range in India, surprising researchers who said its ancestors branched off on the evolutionary tree from other members of the same frog family tens of millions of years ago.
The frog, which is about 2cm to 3cm long, has been namedAstrobatrachus kurichiyana, although some might prefer its more rock-star sobriquet: “starry dwarf frog.”
Dr Alex Pyron, a co-author of the study into the frog at George Washington University, said: “Astrobatrachus is from the Greek for star frog, and so we named it after the spots that sort of look like stars, and kurichiyana is the name of the local peoples in this area where it was found.”
Writing in the journal PeerJ, the team of researchers from the US and India said they first came across the creatures in 2010 while exploring a hill range called Kurichiyarmala in India’s Western Ghats mountain range.
The researchers explained they were working at night to survey amphibians and reptiles when they spotted the frogs on the forest floor and in adjacent grassland, adding that they were generally found lurking beneath leaf litter.
“Because individuals were secretive and difficult to spot, sampling involved an intensive search of the forest floor,” (▪ ▪ ▪)

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mazherali

Amazing that there are organisms still being discovered.