Three new animal species \u2013 two frogs and a gecko \u2013 have been discovered on a remote island in Australia\u2019s north.<\/p>\n
The animals were found on Dauan Island, a 3 sq km island in the far northern Torres Strait that is dominated by boulder fields.<\/p>\n
Conrad Hoskin, an associate professor and terrestrial ecologist at James Cook University, described the new species after a research expedition to Dauan \u2013 the northernmost point of the Great Dividing Range.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you approach it, it just looks like a big triangle sticking out of the sea and, as you get closer, you realise you\u2019re looking at \u2026 car- and house-sized granite boulders piled up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hiked up into all those boulder fields and found the gecko quickly,\u201d Hoskin said, having been tipped off by researcher Alexander Davies, who suspected the island had reptiles not yet known to science.<\/p>\n
Named Nactus simakal, the Dauan Island gecko has a banded pattern and long legs.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the second night, when it was raining, there were these two really distinct frog calls,\u201d Hoskin said. \u201cSure enough, they were species new to science.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Very small \u2026 but super loud\u2019: Choerophyrne koeypad has oversized toe pads and a high-pitched call. Photograph: Conrad Hoskin\/James Cook University<\/p>\n
The smaller of the two frogs, Choerophyrne koeypad (koeypad meaning \u201crocky mountain), has oversized toe pads and a high-pitched call \u2013 \u201clike a metallic tapping noise\u201d, Hoskin said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very small, about the size of my fingernail, but super loud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Its toe pads enable it to climb up on to high boulder surfaces and vegetation.<\/p>\n
The larger frog, Callulops gobakula (gobakula meaning \u201cboulders\u201d), has a croaking call similar to that of a green tree frog and lives in the cracks between boulders.<\/p>\n
The two frogs belong to the microhylid family and are believed to be terrestrial breeders, meaning that frogs hatch directly from laid eggs. Other microhylid species in New Guinea and Australia breed in a similar manner, bypassing the tadpole stage.<\/p>\n
The species were found on Dauan Island\u00a0in the Torres Strait. Photograph: Brook Mitchell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Hoskin said the new frogs\u2019 closest relatives were up in the central ranges of New Guinea. \u201cA lot of the southern plains of New Guinea are a bit \u2026 drier,\u201d he said. \u201cThese two frogs have only survived on this island because of those deep boulder fields that buffer them from the heat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll three species will certainly only be on Dauan Island. There\u2019s no other bouldery habitat anywhere nearby, either on the other islands or on the southern New Guinea plains.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torenzo Elisala, a Dauan Island councillor, said the discoveries \u201chighlight how special our island is\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur community has been tucked away in the Guda Maluilgal nation for millennia, sharing the spiritual connection from flora to fauna to that of our ancestors who lived on these lands before us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese discoveries are exciting to learn more about science and add to the tourism potential of the island.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hoskin described the new species in two<\/a> papers<\/a> published in the journal Zootaxa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three new animal species \u2013 two frogs and a gecko \u2013 have been discovered on a remote island…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-219304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}