Une belle grenouille de je sais pas qu'elle planete #A10
Old purple frog danced with dinosaurs
Last Updated Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:52:39 EDT
CBC News
BRUSSELS - A bright purple frog shaped like a donut with a pointy snout has been discovered in the mountains of southern India.
The seven-centimeter long amphibian hopped around the feet of dinosaurs. Researchers say the small-headed critter belongs to a new family of frogs thought to have disappeared millions of years ago.
The frog has its own scientific family (Courtesy S. D. Biju)
Evolutionary biologist Franky Bossuyt of Free University of Brussels in Belgium and colleague S. D. Biju described the new species in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
The pair discovered the frog in the Western Ghats Mountains of India, one of eight biodiversity hotspots in the world home to unusual species.
Bossuyt says the frog's closest relatives are the Sooglossids, a small and close-knit collection of frogs found only in the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.
The Seychelles and India are now separated by 3,000 kilometers of ocean. It's thought the two countries once formed part of a huge landmass which split millions of years ago.
The ancient super-continent of Gondwana included South America, Africa, India, Madagascar and the Seychelles, Australia and Antarctica.
Scientists estimated the frog family tree split about 230 million years ago. The discovery suggests this frog branched off 130 million years ago when Gondwana lost its eastern end.
In the mid 1800s, biologists described 29 families of frogs. Bossuyt and Biju have placed their frog in a new family, based on a DNA analysis.
In a commentary accompanying the study, astrobiologist Blair Hedges of Pennsylvania State University called the discovery "a once-in-a-century find."
elle est bizarre non???
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