51动漫

THIS bizarre burrowing frog has just been discovered in southern India 鈥� and it belongs to an ancient lineage that dates back to the time of the dinosaurs. The new species could resolve a long-standing debate about the origins of another group of 鈥渓iving fossil鈥� frogs found in the Seychelles.

Franky Bossuyt of the Free University in Brussels (VUB) and S. D. Biju of the Tropical and Botanic Garden and Research Institute in Kerala, India, say the frog represents a new family, which they have dubbed Nasikabatrachidae 鈥� from the Sanskrit for 鈥渘ose鈥� and 鈥渇rog鈥�. Phylogenetic DNA analyses suggest its closest relatives are the Sooglossidae, a family of four species found only on two islands in the Seychelles (Nature, vol 425, p 711). 鈥淚t is a fascinating discovery,鈥� agrees Michael Tyler, an expert in sooglossid frogs at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

Until about 65 million years ago, the Seychelles and mainland India were part of the same land mass. But Bossuyt and Biju鈥檚 DNA work shows the two frog families diverged well before then. Some researchers had suggested that the sooglossids belonged to an African lineage. 鈥淏ut the discovery of this new frog adds weight to the idea that the Seychelles frogs evolved from frogs present on the India-Madagascar-Seychelles continent,鈥� Bossuyt says.