Thursday, March 15, 2012

New Frog Species Found In NYC

Wired:
We tend to think of the discovery of a new species as requiring a trip to a remote and exotic location. But our ability to use DNA to determine how closely populations are related has revealed an unexpected fact: Lots of plants and animals that look indistinguishable to the human eye are actually quite distant from each other genetically, often far enough to merit a new species designation. In the latest example, researchers have found that a population of leopard frogs that make their home in the New York City area are probably a newly discovered species.According to the press release accompanying the new paper, the leopard frogs in the region were noted as having a croak that was quite distinct from those of the two species that inhabit the northern and southern parts of the East Coast. (A researcher involved in the finding described the other species as having a “long snore” or a “rapid chuckle.”) Speculation had focused on the possibility that the New York frogs were a hybrid of the two species, but molecular evidence shows that they are distant from both.
I don't think I would go to New York City in search of new species, unless I was going to search for a new species of person.

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