Micro Frog Discovered Inside Bornean Pitcher Plants

[n2doc]

By Jess McNally August 25, 2010 | 2:11 pm | Categories: Animals, Biology



Freshly metamorphosed, a baby micro frog sits on a penny. Photo credit: Indraneil Das/ Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation

Scientists have discovered the Old World’s smallest species of frog living inside pitcher plants in the jungles of Southeast Asia’s Borneo.

The micro frogs, named Microhyla nepenthicola, grow to only 0.4 to 0.5 inches long — about the size of a pea. It was discovered living along the edge of a road in Kubah National Park in Borneo by a team of scientists searching for the world’s lost amphibians, species considered to be extinct that may still have remnant populations.

“I saw some specimens in museum collections that are over 100 years old,” biologist Indraneil Das, one of frog discovers, said in a press release. “Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly-discovered micro species.”



Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/tiny-frog/#ixzz0xf8FdS8w

[Rhiannon12866]

1. OMG! They are so tiny!

And also very cute. Thanks for posting... :)

[mike_c]

2. animals like this really push the limits of adaptation...

I mean, this is a vertebrate-- albeit a poikilothermic one-- that overlaps the size range of insects and occupies habitats shared with many insect species, yet it exhibits a suite of biomechanical, morphological, and physiological adaptations that differ significantly from those insects use to solve the same environmental and internal problems.

For example-- the example that I thought of first-- this frog has an endoskeletal armature while insects have an exoskeletal integument. The adaptive advantages of exoskeletons are maximized at small size where their strength/weight ratio is adaptive, while endoskeletons become very weak at such small size and offer relatively less surface area for muscle attachment. The biomechanical differences are profound, especially at quite small and large sizes.

Both probably have similar respiratory requirements-- most insects and frogs are active poikilotherms-- yet dramatically different respiratory systems. Frogs have lungs (although I don't know whether this tiny one has functional lungs or not-- it might not need them) and they respire through moist, well vascularized skin as well. Insects have tracheal respiratory systems that carry respiratory gases directly to most tissues of their bodies in air-filled, microscopic tubules.

The list goes on. Normally, it doesn't make sense to contrast such differences because there are relatively few instances where, theoretically at least, such disparate adaptations serve otherwise "similar" animals in similar habitats.

[xchrom]

3. Lovely. Nt

[BrklynLiberal]

4. That is soooooooooooooo coooooooooooool

[Odin2005]

5. WOW, that guy is TINY!