Leaf-Patterned Toad Without Ears Discovered in Peru

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | January 21, 2014 11:06am ET

It was hiding on Peru's forest floors, with a body camouflaged to look like dead leaves.

A new species of toad, calledRhinella yunga after the habitat where it was found, was discovered by scientists in a stretch of mountainous forests along the eastern slopes of the Andes known as the Peruvian Yungas. (The Quechuan word "yungas" means "warm valley.")

It seems that Rhinella yunga toads had been lumped in with another species, Rhinella margaritifera, until scientists discovered a group that mysteriously lacked eardrums. Further investigation proved it was a genetically distinct species.

Continued

A New Toad from the 'Warm Valleys' of Peruvian Andes

Jan. 17, 2014 — A new species of toad was discovered hiding in the leaf litter of the Peruvian Yungas. The word is used widely by the locals to describe ecoregion of montane rainforests, and translates as "warm valley" in English. The new species Rhinella yunga was baptized after its habitat preference.

The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Read on

The world’s rarest toad rediscovered in Sri Lanka

Only ever recorded twice in the 1870s

June 2012. Adenomus kandianus was previously known only from two specimens, both deposited in the British Museum. The only record of A. kandianus since the initial description in 1872 was in 1876, making A. kandianus the world's rarest toad.

The species had not been reported since, and was considered extinct. However the toad was rediscovered in the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary one of the few remaining areas in Sri Lanka with a continuous natural forest cover of altitudinal graded forest types, ranging from lowland mixed Dipterocarp forests to montane cloud forests.

Adenomus kandianus is one of the 21 amphibian species thought to be extinct from Sri Lanka after extensive searches over a ten-year period failed to locate this species in the wild. A global amphibian hotspot, the island of Sri Lanka contains 111 species of amphibians that have been described so far, and it also carries the dubious distinction of contributing the highest proportion (60%) to the global list of extinct amphibians.

Click here to read the full paper on Zootaxa 

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/sri-lanka-toad.html