New Jaguar Frog Discovered on Abandoned Highway

Scientists have discovered a new species of tree frog in an unusual place—a stretch of abandoned highway in Brazil.

When herpetologists first heard male frogs calling in the Amazon rain forest, they suspected the unknown sound came from a species completely new to science. Rafael de Fraga, a herpetologist at the National Institute of Research of the Amazon, and colleagues later confirmed it via genetic analysis.

The team named the species Scinax onca, or the jaguar snouted tree frog, due to its spotted skin and the prevalence of big cats they found in the area.=READ MORE