For the first time, frogs have been seen giving birth to tadpoles.
Most frogs lay eggs and although some species give birth to froglets, newborn tadpoles are new to science.
This species of fanged frog lives on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia, and zoologists had chased it for decades because they suspected it would show this unique behaviour.
An international team has now described it for the first time, in a study published in the journal Plos One.
Dr Jim McGuire from the University of California, Berkeley, actually thought he was holding a male frog the first time he witnessed a birth.
In fact, he had in his hands a pregnant female and, suddenly, a clutch of brand new tadpoles.
Mystery mechanism
Nearly all the world's 6,000 frog species use external fertilisation: the female lays eggs during mating, while the male releases sperm to fertilise them.
"But there are lots of weird modifications to this standard mode of mating," Dr McGuire said.
"This new frog is one of only 10 or 12 species that has evolved internal fertilization, and of those, it is the only one that gives birth to tadpoles, as opposed to froglets or laying fertilized eggs."
How the male frogs manage to fertilise eggs inside the female remains a mystery, because frogs have no conventional sexual organs to transfer the sperm.READ MORE LINK-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-30643756
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