Rare Frog Found in Australia

Researchers have announced that a rare species of frog, the Armoured Mistfrog, that has not been seen since 1991 and was thought to be extinct, has been found alive and well. Here's the story from Yahoo!News:

Australian researchers discover elusive frog


SYDNEY, Australia - A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of Australia's tropical north, researchers said Thursday.

The 1.5 inch-long Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state.

But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville conducting research on another frog species in Queensland stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek, said professor Ross Alford, head of a research team on threatened frogs at the university.

Conrad Hoskin, a researcher at The Australian National University in Canberra who has been studying the evolutionary biology of north Queensland frogs for the past 10 years, conducted DNA tests on tissue samples from the frogs and determined they were the elusive Armoured Mistfrog.

Link to the full story. Photo copyright AP Photo/James Cook University, Robert Puschendorf, HO.

Top 10 New Species of 2007 Named

The International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) has released it's annual list of the top 10 new species found for the previous year, so this years list is for 2007. Here's the story from Yahoo!News:

Top 10 New Species Named

Thousands of new plant and animal species were discovered in 2007, though only 10 were bizarre enough, lethal enough or just plain cool enough to garner spots on a new Top-10 list.

Each year, the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University issues the Top 10 New Species list, which spotlights flora and fauna described during the previous year, so in this case 2007.

The new list includes lethal animals like a box jellyfish (Malo kingi) - named after Robert King, who apparently died after he was stung by this species - and the Central Ranges Taipan (Oxyuranus temporalis), now thought to be one of the most venomous snakes in the world.

Link to the full story.

Officials Say Caribbean Monk Seal Extinct

Unfortunately, even with all the new species being discovered all over the world, there are still those that don't make it, and it looks like the Caribbean monk seal is one of the unlucky ones. Here's the story from Yahoo!News:

Caribbean monk seal becomes extinct


HONOLULU - Federal officials have confirmed what biologists have long thought: The Caribbean monk seal has gone the way of the dodo.

Humans hunting the docile creatures for research, food and blubber left the population unsustainable, say biologists who warn that Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals could be the next to go.

The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952 between Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service confirmed Friday that the species is extinct.

Kyle Baker, a biologist for NOAA's Fisheries Service southeast region, said the species is the only seal to become extinct from human causes.

The seals were first classified as endangered in 1967, and wildlife experts investigated several reported sightings over the past few decades. But officials determined they were other seal types.

The federal agency says there are fewer than 1,200 Hawaiian and 500 Mediterranean monk seals remaining, and their populations are declining.

Link to the full story. Photo is of a Hawaiian monk seal, a realative of the extinct species.

Rare Frog Discovered to be Lungless

A rare frog from Borneo has been discovered to be the first completely lungless frog. Scientist had not dissected earlier specimens due to their rarity. Here's the story from Yahoo!News:

Bizarre Frog Has No Lungs

The first lungless frog has been discovered lurking in the jungles of Borneo.

The enigmatic amphibian, dubbed Barbourula kalimantanensis, apparently gets all the oxygen it needs through its skin.

Scientists first saw one of these frogs 30 years ago, but due to their rarity, just one other specimen had been collected since then and neither had been dissected.

"No one thought to open them up - there was no real reason to believe that they could be lungless," said researcher David Bickford, an evolutionary biologist at the National University of Singapore. "Because these specimens were so rare, they had never been dissected. If you have just one specimen in your museum, you don't want to rip it open!"

The amphibians, no more than 2 inches long, have proven elusive because they live in cold, fast rivers in remote areas of the rainforests of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. Also, they are slippery "and can be surprisingly fast for short bursts," Bickford said. "We had a team of 11 people looking for these frogs and it took us almost two weeks before we found any."

He and his colleagues had no idea this frog would be lungless.

"I was just going to be happy if we simply rediscovered the frogs," Bickford said. "It had been 30 years of intermittent searching for this frog until we could put together a multinational team and get to the last remaining areas where it could realistically be found."

Link to the full story.

Rare White Stag Spotted in Scotland

A rare and ghostly white stag has been spotted in the Scottish Highlands, and has even been caught on camera. Here's the story from Yahoo!News:

Ghost-like white stag spotted in Scotland

LONDON (Reuters) - A mythical and ghostly creature has appeared in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands -- and has been caught on camera.

The rare white stag, from the red deer species, is believed to be among just a tiny handful living in Britain, according to a conservation group.

The John Muir Trust is now keeping the stag's location secret for fear of poachers.

"To see him amongst the other stags was truly thrilling because he does look like a ghost: you do a double-take," Trust Partnership Manager Fran Lockhart, who filmed the stag, told Reuters.

White stags are seen as a magical and powerful force in many mythologies.

The animal's ghostly glow comes from a recessive gene which causes leucism, a condition which reduces the normal brown colouring in hair and skin. They are not albinos, which have red eyes due to lack of pigment.

Link to the full story. Photo copyright REUTERS/John Muir Trust/Handout.

New Elephant Shrew Found in Tanzania

Sorry the story's a little late, been having computer problems. A new species of elephant shrew has been identified in Tanzania. This is the first new species of this type to be found since the 19th century. Here's the story from Yahoo!News:

New shrew-like mammal found in Tanzania

OSLO (Reuters) - A new type of shrew-like creature with a snout similar to an elephant's trunk has been found in the mountains of Tanzania, the first new species of the mammal found since the 19th century, scientists said.

The creature, a type of elephant shrew to be named the grey-faced sengi, was found in the Udzungwa mountains of south-central Tanzania by scientists from Italy's Trento Museum of Natural Sciences and the California Academy of Sciences.

"It is the first new species of giant elephant shrew to be discovered in more than 126 years," Galen Rathbun of the California Academy of Sciences said in a statement distributed by U.S.-based Conservation International.

The creature has a distinctive grey face and a black lower rump and weighs about 700 grams (25 ounces), or 25 percent more than any of the other known 15 species of sengi. Elephant shrews use the snout to help probe for insects, their main food.

Link to the full story. Photo copyright REUTERS/California Academy of Sciences/Handout

New Species of Frog Found in India

A new species of shrub frog has been discovered in Kerala, India. Here's the story from The Hindu newspaper:

New frog species found in Kerala

Bangalore: A new species of shrub frog from the Western Ghats adds its name to the growing list of frogs discovered recently. The latest is a tiny oriental shrub frog, named Philautus ochlandrae, discovered in the evergreen forests of the Kakkayam Reserve Forest in Kerala.

The squat little amphibian does not grow beyond 2.5 cm, has a short rounded snout and protruding eyes with striking golden yellow markings. With this, the number of frog species discovered in the last seven years in India stands at 25.The discovery was published in the international journal Zootaxa in October 2007.

The frog lives in the hollows of bamboo reeds in the forests of the Western Ghats, where rain is abundant and temperatures are low, said K.V. Gururaja, doctoral fellow at the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), here. He is one of the five authors of the paper. The co-authors are T.V. Ramachandra, Professor, CES, IISc; and K.P. Dinesh, Muhamed Jafer Palot and C. Radhakrishnan, of the Western Ghats Field Research Station, Zoological Survey of India.

Link to the full story. Photo from the site.