Micro Frog Discovered Inside Bornean Pitcher Plants

Micro Frog Discovered Inside Bornean Pitcher Plants

Micro Frog Discovered Inside Bornean Pitcher Plants

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."

The frog has been named after the species of pitcher plant that it needs to breed called Nepenthes ampullaria, one of many pitcher plant species in Borneo. The frogs attach their eggs to the sides of the pitcher, and the tadpoles grow in the watery liquid inside the plant.

A published taxonomy of the discovery is being published in *Zootaxa. *

It is beat out in the distinction of world's smallest frog by a slightly smaller frog found in Cuba.

Amphibians are the most threatened group of animals worldwide, with a third of the world's species in danger of extinction.

Top image credit: Indraneil Das/ Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation

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