For the first time since 1882 , New York City has a new frog . dub the Atlantic coast leopard frog , the new species was attain six years ago in the Marsh of Staten Island – hiding in unvarnished sight not too far from the Statue of Liberty . Their telling range extends beyond the Big Apple to include wetland all along the Interstate 95 corridor from Connecticut to North Carolina .
Technically , the frog was first notice in the New York – New Jersey metropolitan area half a century ago , but these claims were dismissed . “ Even though he was distinctly on to something , the claim Carl Kauffeld made in his 1937 newspaper light short , ” saysRutgers University ’s Jeremy Feinberg , who made the 2008 find . “ We had the benefit of inherited testing and bioacoustic psychoanalysis that simply were n’t available to Kauffeld to prove that even though this salientian might look like the two other Panthera pardus batrachian in the area , it was really a third and completely separate species , ” he adds in anews vent .
Kauffeld break in 1974 , and Feinberg and colleagues named the newfangled frogRana kauffeldiin his honor . The team made aninitial announcementin a2012 paperof an undocumented third Gaul separate from the northerly and southern leopard frogs , R. pipiensandR. sphenocephala . Last week , the squad completed their discovery in aPLOS ONEpaper , leave the grounds needed to formally name the new frog , as well as description of its distribution , ecology , and conservation position .
They ’re cryptically colored in plenty - gray to tripping olive viridity , with average - to - drab spots . They care heroic , open - canopy wetlands – though century of impact to these expanse farm some conservation concerns .
Over the last two years , with the avail of biologists and frog enthusiast throughout the east coast , the team confirmed that the mountain range of the new frog span eight DoS and several major cities along 780 kilometers ( 485 nautical mile ) . Its narrow and for the most part coastal lowland distribution stretch from fundamental Connecticut to northern New Jersey ( base on inherited data ) and to the south to North Carolina ( based on bioacoustic data ) .
The last amphibian described from New York or New England was the Fowler ’s toad in 1882 , and this new frog is only the 7th amphibious aircraft describe from New York . It just goes to show , unexampled vertebrates can still be notice in well - learn , dumbly populated , and urban places that are rarely associated with undocumented biodiversity .
Images : Brian R. Curry ( top ) & Brian Zarate ( middle ) from 2014 Feinberg et al . , PLOS ONE
