The boophis aff elenae is one of the new species of frogs discovered in Madagascar by researchers from the Spanish Scientific Research Council. (Photo: Miguel Vences)
Frog Island
Scientists discover as many as 221 new frog species in Madagascar
Illustration: Jim McMahon
Madagascar is a hotbed of animal life. But researchers are learning that there's a lot more wildlife on this island than they thought.
Last week, scientists from the Spanish Scientific Research Council reported that they discovered between 129 and 221 new frog species in Madagascar. This find nearly doubles the number of known amphibian species on the island.
The discovery is exciting for scientists who study Madagascar. They thought they had already discovered most of the wildlife on the island.
"During the past 15 years, we discovered and described over 100 new frog species from Madagascar, which led us to believe that our species inventory is almost complete," Dr. Frank Glaw, a member of the research team, said. "But as our new surveys show, there are many more species than we suspected."
Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. It's located off the southeast coast of Africa. The country is known for its exotic wildlife, like the ringtail lemur. Nearly 80 percent of all mammals in Madagascar live only on that island country.
The island also has a unique population of amphibian life. Scientists had previously catalogued 217 types of frogs in Madagascar. All but one of them is native to the country.
This latest discovery of frogs leads scientists to think that there are many animal species living in Madagascar that have yet to be found.
In order to find them, researchers need to work quickly.
An unstable government and decades of logging have led to nearly 80 percent of Madagascar's rain forests being destroyed. And this deforestation is threatening all of the island's native animals.
Conservation efforts have been in place in Madagascar for years. But without a strong government to enforce laws, loggers have been able to cut down trees in national parks and other reserves.
This is troubling for scientists on the research team that discovered the new frogs.
Only about a quarter of the new frog species they found lived in protected areas. That means the rest were discovered in parts of the country that are open to logging and deforestation.
The research team hopes its discoveries will bring attention to the importance of conservation in Madagascar, as well as all over the planet. The group says that finding these new frogs demonstrates how much has yet to be discovered in our natural world.
"People think that we know which plant and animal species live on this planet," Miguel Vences, a member of the research team, said. "But the centuries of discoveries have only just begun. The majority of life-forms on Earth are still awaiting scientific recognition."
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Check out these photos of some of the new frogs scientists found in Madagascar. (All images ©Miguel Vences.) |
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