Exquisite new-to-science frog species has golden legs and strange conduct

Resplendent with its blue stripes and golden legs, this newly described poison dart frog might glance enforcing, however it is just in regards to the dimension of a thumbnail, measuring simply 14 to 17 millimetres from the top of its snout to its derrière, or cloaca.

Esteban Koch on the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Manaus, Brazil, and his colleagues discovered the frog within the forests of the Juruá river basin in Brazil in 2023 and went again to search for additional specimens in 2024. The workforce has now formally described it and named the species Ranitomeya aetherea.

Little is understood in regards to the frog, however there are clues about its parental care device. Koch’s workforce hasn’t discovered any massive teams of tadpoles, hatched from a large seize of eggs. Instead, they’ve noticed handiest people, principally in water-filled cavities the place leaves sign up for the stem on palm-like crops known as Phenakospermum guyannense.

The workforce noticed one feminine deposit a unmarried egg, which implies that eggs are laid singly, as occurs in every other poison dart frogs. “It’s possible that the female goes back when the tadpole is developing and lays another unfertilised egg, so that the tadpole can eat this to get energy,” says Koch.

The researchers don’t know the way giant the inhabitants of the frogs is, so can’t inform whether it is endangered, however within the yr between the 2 surveys, they noticed there have been deforestation within the space they searched, which they accessed by way of a small aircraft after which an 8-hour boat travel at the river. “As the frog is really specific to this plant in this area, any small disturbance could be dangerous to the species,” says Koch.