A tiny greenish, nocturnal frog that thrives in coffee plantations has been discovered in the Costa Rica’s central Pacific region, where it also faces risks from agrochemicals used in farming.<\/p>\n
Measuring less than four centimetres and known as the “spring frog,” AFP reporters observed the dark green-spotted amphibians in San Lorenzo de Tarrazu.<\/p>\n
“It’s a new species of tree frog for science, and endemic to Costa Rica,” researcher Wagner Chaves-Acuna told AFP, per the findings of colleagues from the University of Costa Rica and Argentina’s National Council for Scientific and Technical Research.<\/p>\n
Also nicknamed the ‘coffee frog,’ the species has another distinctive trait: males have a translucent throat that inflates with their short, high-pitched call<\/p>\n
“At night, when they are most active, you can hear them singing and perched on coffee shrubs,” Chaves-Acuna said.<\/p>\n
Generally, frogs seek out shade, moisture and food in the crops — but they are not after the coffee berries, feeding instead on the small insects in the habitat.<\/p>\n
Chaves-Acuna warns that pesticide use on coffee plantations could potentially pose a risk to these tiny amphibians.<\/p>\n
“These poisons travel through the air…they seep through the soil and that’s where they enter the aquatic systems where the tadpoles develop,” Chaves Acuna said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tiny greenish, nocturnal frog that thrives in coffee plantations has been discovered in the Costa Rica’s central…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-562733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}