New Species: Pink-and-Yellow Frog With Spikes

read moreOnly thorny tree frog males sport spikes, as seen above. Photograph by Jodi Rowley

That’s because thorny tree frogs (Gracixalus lumarius), as they’re named in a new study published April 2 in the journal Zootaxa, are found only on Mount Ngoc Linh and surrounding peaks above 5,900 feet (1,800 meters). (Also see “‘Strange’ New Frog Found in Swimming Pool.”)
“Almost every tree we looked in had these frogs. They seem to be only from the tops of mountains in this one area in Vietnam, and this region is known to be home to a bunch of species that are found nowhere else,” said Rowley, a biologist at the Australian Museum Research Institute in Sydney.
Tough Love
Rowley and colleagues regularly explore Vietnam’s mountains, home to the world’s most diverse group of amphibians. In 2013, the team revealed a new flying frog with flappy forearms, which lives not far from Ho Chi Minh City.