New Living Fossil Discovered in India

pyr0 writes "A new species of frog has been discovered in Southern India. This species dates back 130 million years ago, when portions of the supercontinent Gondwana broke away, and was long thought to have been extinct. Its closest relatives are known as 'Sooglossids' and are only found 3000km away on Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. The cool thing about this species? It's purple, and has what looks like a snout!"

You should be careful with your definition..

[annisette]

of a donut, after reading your first sentence I thought of a frog with a pointy snout and a hole in the middle, but alas after looking at the photo I see you ment a jelly (er,frog gut)filled donut. It may not seen like a big deal to you but think of the frog, now discovered, cataloged, probably have a number painted on it,s back and won't be able to get away to pee with out spotlights every where and people thinking he/she has a hole in his/her middle. So Mr./Ms CBS staff do not take your responsibility to

Utter nonsense

[keesh]

Clearly, God put it there to test our faith.

Re:Utter nonsense

[Tyreth]

Huh? To test your faith in evolution - seeing as this animal remained near unchanged for 130 million years? I don't understand.

Purple

[BrookHarty]

Wow, when they said a little purple frog with a tiny head and snout, they where NOT kidding. Funny looking little frog.

Now I'm wondering what kind of Croak it makes.

And they tested its DNA, and said it was a different breed of frogs, amazing.

Re:Purple

[BrookHarty]

Hence, Barneys ancestors revealed!

Re:Purple

[ForestGrump]

budweiser

Moley

[jkcity]

it kinda looks like a purple mole, I want one as a pet.

I Feal Froggy

[lostindenver]

I Feal Froggy, If i lick it will i see purple frogs?

Hmmmm

[floydman]

New Living Fossil Discovered in India!!

Praying Doesn't Help!!!

Very intersting /. day today.... i cant wait to know what else is comming up.

Re: Hmmmm

[Black Parrot]

New Living Fossil Discovered in India!!

Praying Doesn't Help!!!

Very intersting /. day today.... i cant wait to know what else is comming up.

Arnold elected governor of California!

Windows vulnerabilities fixed faster!

Rush does dope!

US taxpayers pay $1.75 to support each gallon of gasoline sold in Iraq!

It seems we've all been teleported to Bizarro World. I want to see the results of a study about praying to purple frogs...

Another Link

[pyr0]

I came across another link [discovery.com] since submitting the story. This one actually gives the name of this new species: Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis

The real question....

[crapulent]

But does it run linux?

Does...

[Trikenstein]

licking it give you hella buzz?

good thing they didn't find it in the U.S.

[BigChigger]

else they would have declared it was deformed because of pollution and started sueing the crap out of everybody.

BC

Colors

[Strange Ranger]

If a 130 million year old species of frog is so darn purple... wonder what other colors were around back then. Maybe a purple dinosaur isn't so far off. We always assume they were greenish. Hmmmm..

It would be interesting if they could find a 'purple' gene in that frog, and then look for the same gene elsewhere.. see what else might have been purple.

Re:Colors

[driftingwalrus]

Small problem, most fossils are old enough that there is simply no DNA left to extract and test. Finding DNA in a 2,000 year old body is extraordinarily hard, let alone after millions of years.

Re:Colors

[Cunk]

Maybe it WAS greenish 130 millions years ago and it only "recently" turned purple.

Hypno....

[Trikenstein]

Toad

Re:Had to say it....

[Tisephone]

Overlords, buddy.

Sentence Structure

[Lafe]

"Researchers say the small-headed critter belongs to a new family of frogs thought to have disappeared millions of years ago."

That sentence cracks me up. It's so new it disappeared millions of years ago! I know what they meant, but still...

Re: frogs? no, I don't think so!

[Black Parrot]

> words "purple" and "seven-centimeter long", when in one sentence, usually mean it should be filtered by the antispam filter.

7cm isn't big enough to be obscene.

Purple frogs

[Uplore]

Purple frogs? Sounds like a character from a Dr Suess book to me.

clearly

[geekoid]

its moch frog.

so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

so they're trying to tell me that this frog has been pretty much the same for all these millions of years, and meanwhile the earth has undergone all sorts of climate changes and most other species have radically evolved.

is it just me or do things like this make old-earth, macro-evolution theories harder to swallow? of course, i'm not sure how much an ugly purple thing like that helps out the intelligent-design theorists either. when are people gonna start to admit that we just really don't know much abou

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[justaguy516]

Well, evolution is stochastic, and there is a probability that a species in its original condition will not need to respond to changes in the environment and can still survive. The fact that it occurs so infrequently (so few species of living fossils), helps out the theory. It helps to admit that we don't know, only if that leads to an open mind in looking for the solution. Otherwise, we should just stick with the best theory we have till someone comes up with one that is better. And evolution does have an

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

good point about the rarity of these "living fossils."

though i'm not so sure how i feel about "sticking with the best theory..." i suppose it depends on what you mean by that, but i got pretty fed up with the evolutionary dogma shoved down my throat in the public school system when i was growing up. so many things presented to me were obviously based on the assumptions of philosophical materialism (read: atheism). but worst of all, there was never another theory presented. i think that's poor policy.

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Quelain]

There is no competing scientific theory.

If you're talking some religious bullshit, then where is your evidence for it? (There isn't any.)

Talking about 'strongest theory in the mix' is rather dishonest when the 'strength' of your favoured "theory" is nonexistent. Do you even know the definition of the word theory in science?

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

ever heard of Michael Behe? how about William Dembski? look 'em up before you start blabbing on about there being no scientific contention with traditional evolutionary theory. ...but then again, you seem like you've made up your mind and can't take any opposition. so never mind about doing the research, go live in your happy little world and don't bother questioning the reality you've been taught.

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Quelain]

Yes, I have heard of them, but a couple of cranks who write books doesn't make a scientific theory.

What research have they done? Where can I find their papers? How many biologists support their position?

Yes, I have made up my mind. 150 years of finding evidence and doing research is a fairly serious questioning of reality IMO. The fact is that this mountain of evidence and research points to evolution.

*You* are kidding yourself if you think you're being open minded by accepting the creationist dogma. You

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

so you've heard those names, that's nice. can you tell me what they do for a living? have you read anything by them (either their books or papers)? do you typically write off people that challenge your beliefs as cranks when you know next to nothing about them?

oh, and congrats on the 150 years of successful research. you must be tired after all that. and even if i misunderstood and other people did all of that, your study and grasp of all that material is also worthy of congratulations!

seriously, don

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Quelain]

Yes, I have read some of what they are passing off as science, and I can tell why they are wrong. You are just assuming that I know nothing about them or their views.

Yes, of course I was referring to the peer reviewed work done by thousands of scientists since Darwin published the Origin of Species.

This is not an argument from authority, I am not saying Darwin or Gould said such and such which agrees with my position. I'm saying that there is a mountain of evidence supporting evolution, and no evidence at

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Bowling Moses]

I've read articles by Behe and Dembski and was not favorably impressed. Behe and Dembski are not taken seriously by the scientific community for that matter either. For example, read Nature's review of Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" (Nature 1996, Volume 383, pages 227-228, available pay-only from them, but freely available here [world-of-dawkins.com]). Another review that is available [ncseweb.org] online is from the National Center for Science Education--the premier science education body in the USA. Naturally, both it and Nature (and, wel

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

From what you've posted to this story, I'd be willing to wager that you slept through whatever your school tried to teach you about evolution. ok. how much? "Ah, there's that new creationist party line. When the evidence doesn't support your views, deny the validity of supporting views with evidence!" there's nothing new about philosophy and debates over the sum and substance of reality. in fact, those debates have been around a hellufa lot longer than the traditional evolutionary theories. as far a

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

well, gosh, you've convinced me. those theories aren't hard to swallow, and macro-evolution and the age of the earth have been scientifically verified.

thank you for that stunning display of wit, logic, and evidence. how humble of you to post such brilliance anonymously!

now, don't hold back anymore! with this information, we could put the whole debate and all of its angles to rest. then we'll all go watch the World Series together in perfect harmony. beers all around! hurrah!

(when i'm sarcastic, you'

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Copid]

Your comment about "the whole debate" is very telling. The fact is, there is no real debate among biologists. There's a lot of debate among lay people in the US, but that's no surprise. If quantum mechanics were as politically polarizing as evolution, we'd all be laughing at the half of the population of uneducated non-physicists who "don't believe" in quantum mechanics. For some reason, biology seems easy enough to everybody that even people with no more than a high school education feel qualified to l

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Copid]

Before people jump on me for mentioning economists, I'd like to clarify: Economists aren't natural scientists like the other people I mentioned. However, economists do deal with empirical data and come to conclusions that those unfamiliar with their field often disagree with--something very important when forming public policy, be it educational standards or economic policy.

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[pyr0]

AMEN!! Just to add a point here, the same thing does happen to geology. Evolutionary theory is strongly linked to geology and the concept of the age of the Earth. Without the old Earth, evolution simply doesn't work. Numerous extremely carefully thought out and executed studies have shown over and over and over that the Earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old, yet you have common religious zealots refuting this, either through naming special cases where it doesn't always work (that can almost alway

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

why is it that everyone assumes that anyone who questions traditional evolutionary theory is either A. an idiot or B. a religious zealot or C. both?

i've spent more than my fair share of time on talkorigins.org and trueorigins.org and a bazillion other evolution, young-earth creation, old-earth creation, intelligent design, and whatnot websites. i've read plenty of books, been in plenty of debates, watched plenty of debates, and so on and so forth.

if don't you think there aren't both very smart people an

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

actually, wait a minute. i take that back...

i *am* an idiot!

"All mankind is stupid, devoid of knowledge..."
-Jeremiah 51:17a (NASB)

heh. make of that whatever you will! but know that philosophers and scientists can be friends. you just can't be afraid to open your mind. trust me, it won't hurt ...much. :)

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Copid]

I don't want to probe too deeply into what appears to be a sensitive area for you, but the bottom line is this: If you think that the fact that there are species on Earth that haven't changed in a long time somehow presents a problem for evolutionary theory, you're clearly not as knowledgable about the topic as you're leading us to believe. There is obviously a gap in your understanding somewhere. Here is where I think you've gone wrong:

i've read plenty of books, been in plenty of debates, watched plen

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

"I don't want to probe too deeply into what appears to be a sensitive area for you"

sensitive? no. excitable? yes. :)

"...you're clearly not as knowledgable about the topic as you're leading us to believe."

hmm. i think it'd be more accurate to say i'm clearly not as knowledgeable about the implications of such a discovery as i'd like to believe.

your point about books and internet versus biology journals is very interesting. definitely something that could be worth thinking about and looking into. thoug

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Copid]

hmm. i think it'd be more accurate to say i'm clearly not as knowledgeable about the implications of such a discovery as i'd like to believe.

Perhaps, but the root of that problem seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the evoutionary process. The idea that all species must evolve as if it's some law of physics is simply false. Populations that are not subject to selective pressures that favor changes will not change (much) over time. Some species of shark are classic examples of t

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

woah. you've got a lot of free time on your hands! wanna share some with me? :)

but i'll harp on a few points...

first, widespread bias != vast conspiracy. one is inevitable and the other is improbable. when you equate anti-evolutionist claims of bias in the scientific community with conspiracy, you misrepresent them. it's a illogical, inflammatory tactic, and one i've heard plenty of on both sides.

still, you've piqued my interest about the journal publishing subject even further with the statement th

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Copid]

woah. you've got a lot of free time on your hands! wanna share some with me? :)

If only it were so. There are some things I regard as important, though. Attacks on good science on the basis of limited knowledge are one of the things I consider important, if for no other reason than they tend to muddy the water for people who may not know much about the subject at hand. Stuff like this perpetuates the myth that science has "agreed to disagree" on this subject when the reality is, consensus was reached l

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

"You can't go criticizing a theory without fully understanding what you're saying and expect not to be called on it."

uh... i *was* called on it. repeatedly. even by you. it was the repetition that irked me.

"....Miller-Urey or peppered moths. If you're hearing that those examples are useless, you're not hearing the whole story"

i've heard this defense before. i'm not convinced. they just need to use better examples or at least acknowledge those are just "possibilities" and "teaching illustrations." o

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Lars Arvestad]

I don't know what the linked-to story says, but the authors of the Nature paper says nothing like that. What they found was the when reconstructing an evolutionary tree based on molecular data, the new species had a lineages distinct from most other frogs and that its closest living relative is found on the Seychelles.

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Mr. Slippery]

so they're trying to tell me that this frog has been pretty much the same for all these millions of years, and meanwhile the earth has undergone all sorts of climate changes and most other species have radically evolved. is it just me or do things like this make old-earth, macro-evolution theories harder to swallow?

It's just you, because you don't seem to understand evolution.

First: species don't evolve much. If a group of organisms belong to a species changes a great deal, they're not the same specie

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

> > is it just me or do things like this make > > old-earth, macro-evolution theories harder > > to swallow?" > > It's just you. drat. that's not good news. thanks for the heads up though! > (Though I can't help but pause in passing to > wonder why you suppose a frog many millions of > years old makes it harder to believe in an old > earth...)" i wonder why you wonder... don't pause long though, i doubt it's worth your time. > > of course, i'm not sure how mu

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[nadabu14]

sigh. don't you just love it when you've got something totally witty and obnoxious to say but end up blowing the delivery and looking like a complete idiot?

i sure do!

Re:so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[young-earth]

Indeed it is far from the only such species found. Consider the coelacanth, known for a time as the "lungfish". This blighter is still used as an index fossil for 70-140 million years old. Yet you can go catch one if you're good at really deep fishing off the coast of Africa.

Ummm .... yep that's right, it's still an index fossil. Find a rock with coelacanth bones in it, and you'll have "proven" that the rock is 70-140 million years old. Even if your neighbor is chowing down on a fresh-fried identical

30 seconds google

[Bowling Moses]

Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

talkorigins [talkorigins.org] (one of many)

geology.about.com [about.com]

Depending on how recent the source and who you talk to, Coelacanth is a name belonging to either a genus or a family, not just one species. There are ~125 species identified from fossils alone, which are used as index fossils; this is not a problem since they are morphologically distinct from each other and the modern coelacanth species.

Abiogenesis has moved on in the 50 years since Miller-Urey. Might I suggest reading a recent article: "On the o

Re:30 seconds google

[young-earth]

I brought up Miller-Urey because that discredited experiment is still taught so widely that many folks here cite it as proof, since it's what they were taught was proof of evolution. It's nice to talk with someone who is beyond that.

That article at the Royal Society (at least from its abstract, the article is not freely available for a couple of years it looks like) makes the classic error that all of the prebiotic auto-replication theories do. The talkorigins summary is also a very good summary of an am

Re:30 seconds google

[Bowling Moses]

" I brought up Miller-Urey because that discredited experiment is still taught so widely that many folks here cite it as proof, since it's what they were taught was proof of evolution. It's nice to talk with someone who is beyond that."

Miller-Urey is in textbooks, but it is not used as "proof" of evolution and never has been. Neither have I ever seen anyone here attempt to use it as "proof" of evolution. The experiment shows that it is possible for a very simple system resembling conditions found on a p

Re:30 seconds google

[young-earth]

That second link just gives

The requested document is freely available only to registered users with an online subscription to Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences

So I guess you are somewhere that gets past that.

Miller-Urey is used as proof, it was so taught to me at a high-prestige institution in an advanced (i.e., majors only, past pre-meds) organic chemistry seminar course.

Natural selection as in providing descent with modifications, a key part of progressive evolution, is only going to occur

Re:30 seconds google

[Bowling Moses]

Pity you couldn't get that article; it was really a fun read with a truly massive bibliography. If you were taught that the Miller-Urey experiment was proof of evolution, then your organic chemistry teacher was either wrong or you misunderstood. At any rate, this is the only example I have ever heard of. Still, the challenge remains: find me a textbook which claims that Miller-Urey is proof of evolution.

"Indeed physics and chemistry are deterministic - they go where the Gibb's free energy dictate they

Re: 30 seconds google

[Black Parrot]

> 30 seconds google

What makes you think an evolution denier would invest so much as 30 seconds looking for facts that might rattle his comfy beliefs?

If creationists were interested in facts, they wouldn't be creationists.

Re: so the frog's not evolving much, eh?

[Black Parrot]

> Let's see your evidence for abiogenesis.

We know that the universe was once inhospitable to biological life, and we know that at least one corner of it now teems with biological life.

Ergo, life had a non-biological beginning at some point.

Notice that even creationists believe this: the only point in dispute is the mechanism.

> Are you going to cite Miller-Urey????

No, U-M is simply a demonstration that complex biological molecules can arise from simpler precursors. Since then we've even discove

living fossils are scary...

[0x12d3]

Just in time for Halloween. "Night of the living fossils"

who found who?

[bobba22]

If this frog has seen the continents split, dinosaurs come and go, the rise of the mammals and the evolution of mankind, are we really so arrogant to think that *we* have discovered *it*? I think that the frogs have deemed it time to contact their childish co-planetiods and impart their age-old wisdom to us. It is clear they are intellectually our superior as they have finally given up their game of hide and seek the clear victors. I find it a disgrace that my fellow /.ers are wanting them as pets and gener

Re:who found who?

[reptilian biotech]

wow. If i had moderator access today, I would mod this up. kudos man.

The abstract and Nature link

[Lars Arvestad]

With so many confused comments in this thread, I think it is appropriate to link to the actual Nature paper [nature.com]. I think this abstract page is readable by everyone, sorry if you need a subscription. In that case, I offer the abstract

About 96% of the more than 4,800 living anuran species belong to the Neobatrachia or advanced frogs. Because of the extremely poor representation of these animals in the Mesozoic fossil record, hypotheses on their early evolution have to rely largely on extant taxa. Here we report