This orange-spotted, pointed-nosed frog belongs to a species newly discovered in the Amazon region. However, it owes its name, Synapturanus zombie, not to its appearance, but to its unusual way of life
In the close-mouthed frog family, around 650 species are known to date, which are mainly found in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. They resemble each other through the typical pointed mouth and the mostly small and rather clumsy body structure. A very special way of life is also common among most representatives of the narrow-mouth frogs: While some species live in trees, many hide buried in the ground during the day.
The latter is also done by the frogs belonging to the genus Synapturanus. Their way of life makes them particularly difficult to explore. In addition, the distribution areas of this genus of frogs are mainly limited to northern South America and the habitats of the frogs are difficult to access. Scientists therefore assume that the species diversity of these narrow-mouth frogs is at least six times higher than previously known.
But an international team of researchers led by Antoine Fouquet from the Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse has now looked for other species of the genus in the northern Amazon region. To do this, the researchers tracked the calls of the frogs in order to find the buried animals. “The calls of the frogs can only be heard after or during heavy rainfall,” explains Raffael Ernst from the Senckenberg Natural History Collections in Dresden. “This means that we herpetologists have to dig the animals out of the earth with our bare hands for identification.”
And indeed: Fouquet and his colleagues were able to identify three new species of the genus Synapturanus on the basis of twelve different morphological features, such as reduced limbs or small eyes. Due to the laborious digging of the frogs, the researchers named the first one, including the almost 40 millimeter tall, orange-spotted frog on our photo, Synapturanus zombie. A second, discovered in Guyana and Venezuela, they described as Synapturanus mesomorphus and the third, living in northern Brazil, as Synapturanus ajuricaba.
In the future, Fouquet and his team want to research other species of the little-explored narrow-mouthed frog genus. “So there is still a lot to be done – also because we are currently unable to conclusively assess the endangerment status of the species due to the difficult data situation,” emphasizes Ernst.