Over 100 Frog Species Discovered in Sri Lanka 33
randomErr writes "An ecological treasure trove of brightly colored and diverse new frog species has been discovered on the tea-plantation-covered island of Sri Lanka. The discovery of more than a hundred new rain-forest species makes the country a new center of frog diversity and increases the urgency for protecting what little forest it retains."
Are any of them this one? (Score:4, Funny)
The Mexican Staring Frog of Southern Sri Lanka [bitzi.com]
Thank you Trey and Matt.
Nuclear? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nuclear? (Score:2)
And what nuke tests are you taslking about. France hasn't had any colonial possessions near Sri Lanka for some 200 years or so. And I thought they did all their testing by their Pacific Island possessions and perhaps their North African ones.
Re:Nuclear? (Score:2)
You mean the nuclear tests the french conducted during the french revolution? Those tests weren't all that big. The French were too busy trying to perfect the guillotine and beheading various nobles.
Re: Nuclear? (Score:2, Funny)
> If not, where can I be a tree hugger and send money to?
You can be a tree hugger in the privacy of your own home, and send your money to me.
Ambiguous Title. (Score:4, Insightful)
The new finding increases the island's previously known tree frog diversity more than fivefold to over 100 species.
So did they find 100 species, or did they find a few more, bringing the Total to 100. They found at least five, because they talk about some later down, but shoddy reporting...
Also, what exactly makes a species? Just because they look different doesn't mean they are a different species. White people look alot different from black people. Same species. Did they do DNA comparisons? How different is different?
This reminds me of the Darwin thing with the birds on the island that gave him the idea of evolution. Most scientists say, if the birds in question weren't so "holy" because of darwin, they wouldn't be classified as different spiecies at all, because the differences are so minor.
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The term mule is used by biologists to indicate any typically sterile cross-species offspring. This is because scientists named this sort of breeding after the classic horse / donkey pair. IIRC, donkeys or ponys can also have mule offspring with zebras.
A rare few mules were able to breed with donkeys, horses or other mules, but it is in the less than 1% category, IIRC.
If lions and tigers were discovered today, they would possibly be considered one species, as Ligers and Tigons are fully interbreedable with either parent species.
For another animal "species" people seem vaguely aware of, oxen are castrated bulls. The difference is that an ox is castrated at a certain point in cattle puberty that casuses it to become immensely muscular due to an excess of testosterone and similar hormones.
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That does screw up my view of how cross-species reproduction works. It really makes me wonder why that first generation is so consistantly fertile.
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Scientists, to justify this, have changed the rule, and basically said, "If you can find any tiny little difference between two populations, and for some reason there isn't much cross breeding (Say, thanks to a mountain range between the two groups), then each is its own particular species. Of course, this is really just a matter of different breeds (think dogs), rather than species.
Its all bullshit and arbitrary.
sourpuss of the week. (Score:1)
If you don't believe the reporter about the count, perhaps you'll believe the guy with the PhD?
The simultaneous discovery of more than 100 species is...astonishing news," said David Skelly of Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in New Haven, Connecticut
Now, on to my *first* reaction to your post.
Stop being such a freakin' humbug and engage your sense of wonder. These dudes out in Sri Lanka found 100 new species in a single study! You must give them major props for that. Read the article further and you will see that
Five of the new species are tree frogs that lay eggs in homespun foam baskets suspended above water--from whence the tadpoles take their first dip. The remainder are all species that produce young on the forest floor in robust eggs. These direct-developing young avoid being tadpoles and emerge as fully fledged, if tiny, versions of their parents.
This is very interesting stuff here. New reproduction stuff, cool new behavior... This is interesting! blah... I'm done.
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-- Agthorr
In addition... (Score:5, Funny)
Twisted article. (Score:4, Informative)
Evaluating Sri Lanka's amphibian diversity [wht.org]
The national geographic article is fluffy trash drawing conclusions that the scientist involved did not come to.
"We are destroying enviroment before we even know what we are destroying so give us money so we can save the enviroment."
Pethiyagoda hypothosizes the exact opposite. That the destruction of corridors of rainforest created islands of rainforest where the frogs species differentiated. The dry land acted like a natural barrier would.
So, destroy the rainforest but do it in strips so we can artificially create new species to replace the ones we loose in the destruction of the rainforest.
Speculation (Score:1)
Okay, they found some radioactive frogs. They didn't find Sean Connery's pony tail and the cure for cancer.
Frogs still barometers of environmental health? (Score:3, Interesting)
Would this diversity indicate...
1) rapid adaption was necessary in an environment that was becoming more harsh at human hands?
2) the frogs are flourishing? Is the environment's supposed toxicity is not hampering frogs in nearly profound ways as previously speculated?
3) there was a miscount in the first place? This is Sri Lanka. Might it have much less biological study than the African Savannah, the Australian Outback, or even the Brazilian rain forest?
A beautiful country (Score:2, Informative)
Re:A beautiful country (Score:1)
Mmm, Tasty (Score:1)
Slogan (Score:2, Funny)
Hypno-toad (Score:1)
Re:Hypno-toad (Score:1)
The way they're handing out grants these days to funky studies (Study: Rich kids do more drugs than poor kids), I wouldn't think it too hard to get a few hundred bucks to fly down there and lick all the toads.
Maybe you could even help them build a temple Homer. :)