巴拿马发现新青蛙品种

A new bright yellow frog species has been found in the mountains of western Panama. The frog belongs to a species-rich group of frogs, the so called rainfrogs that lack a tadpole¹（蝌蚪） stage, but develop directly as little frogs inside the egg. The frog, that measures less than 2 cm, was discovered by Andreas Hertz and his colleagues, who are reptile²（爬行动物） and amphibian³（两栖动物） specialists at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main; Germany. They discovered it in 2010 during several field trips to the Serranía de Tabasará of western Panama a highly understudied part of the Panamanian central mountain range. #

"Although we recognized that the male mating call of this species differs from all what we had heard before and therefore suspected it to be new, much effort was involved to finally spot it in the dense⁴ vegetation," said Hertz. "When we finally caught the first individuals by hand, we noticed that it dyes one's fingers yellow when it is handled. The scientific name (Diasporus citrinobapheus) of this new frog refers to this characteristic and means yellow dyer rainfrog." #

To assure the validity of the frog as a new species, the biologists studied body structure, coloration, molecular⁵ genetic⁶ data, and vocalizations of a series of individuals, and compared the results with the data derived⁷ from closely related species.

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Additionally, the researchers took into consideration the possibility that the yellow stain may be poisonous and performed an analysis of skin secretions⁸. "We cannot say whether the dye is any good as a predatory defence, as we could not find any poisonous components⁹. Maybe the colour is just easily washed out and has no particular function. However, for now, this peculiarity¹⁰ of the new species remains¹¹ enigmatic." said Hertz.

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