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In the summer of 2018 Sandra Goutte and Jacobo Reyes-Velasco, postdoctoral badociates of NYU Abu Dhabi, explored an isolated mountain in southwestern Ethiopia, where some of the last remaining primary forests of the country remain. Bibita Mountain has been under the radar of the team for several years because of its isolation and the fact that no other zoologist has explored it before.
"Untouched, isolated and unexplored: it had all the elements to arouse our interest," said Dr. Reyes-Velasco, originally from the exploration of the mountain. "We tried to join Bibita during a previous expedition in 2016 without success.On last summer, we took a different route that brought us to a higher altitude," he added. .
Their article, published in zookeys Journal, reports that the new little frog, 17 mm for men and 20 mm for women, is unique among the puddle frogs of Ethiopia. Among the other morphological features, a slender body with long legs, elongated fingers and toes, and a golden color distinguish this frog from its closest relatives. "When we looked at the frogs, it was obvious that we had found a new species, they were so different from all the species of Ethiopia that we had never seen before!" explains Dr Goutte.
Back at NYU Abu Dhabi, the research team sequenced tissue samples of the new species and discovered that Phrynobatrachus bibita sp. Nov. is genetically different from any frog species in the region.
"The discovery of such a genetically distinct species in just a few days in this mountain is the perfect demonstration of the importance of badessing the biodiversity of this type of place.Bibita Mountain probably has many other unknown species waiting for our discovery. "It is essential that biologists discover them in order to properly protect them, as well as their habitat," says the biology chief of the Abu Dhabi program at NYU and the journal's senior researcher, Stéphane Boissinot, who has been working on Ethiopian frogs since 2010.
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Material provided by The University of New York. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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