A team of scientists discovered two new species of frogs in the Madagascar's highest mountain. Despite being one of the island's most remote areas, the Tsaratanana Massif is home to various indigenous species.
Most species residing in this area are still unknown to scientists and experts since it is very hard to reach but a team of German and Spanish scientists conducted an expedition in the area and found two new species of unique frogs.
Scientists from Spain and Germany found the two new species of frogs, namely Rombophryne ornata and Rombophryne tany when they explored the far flung rainforest in 2010. The study published in the journal Herpetelogica, was funded by the Ministry for Science and Innovation with a purpose to discover rare species in Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world.
"Those mountains are home to a high level of native species and are very rarely visited by researchers seeing as there are no roads and barely any paths that lead to the base," David Vieites, of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, said in a news release.
The two elusive and unique frogs reside on the forest floor with fallen leaves making them difficult to locate. The Rombophryne ornata is red in color and has a black mark between the eyes.
These two new species are new to science based on some criteria like genetics, unique characteristics and the sounds they make. Rombophryne tany, on the other hand, was nicknamed "tany" because of its brownish color and it spends most of its time on ground or land.
The discovery of the new species of frogs shows the rich diversity of animals found in tropical parts of the world that's still unexplored up to this time.
