6 new species of rain frogs discovered in Ecuador
Five new species of frogs have been discovered in Ecuador, four of them in the cloud forest of the Amazonas region. A new species of the genus Ancistrus was described by scientists of the Cajas Museum, in Cuenca, Ecuador, and a new species of the genus Microfilaria was described by Luis E. Sánchez-Vargas.
The amphibians were discovered during a recent expedition of the Ecuadorian Natural History Museum, led by the director of the museum, the eminent herpetologist Luis E. Sánchez-Vargas, and a research group consisting of experts from the university of Quito and the institution.
In a recent article, the museum’s director Luis E. Sánchez-Vargas wrote about the reasons for the expedition, which took place between August and November 2007. A total of five new species of frog were discovered in Ecuador, two of them in the Amazonas region, and three of them in the cloud forest in Ecuador, as reported by El País. The expedition was a three-month long journey, whose aim was to create a complete inventory of Ecuador’s amphibians.
The research group consisted of a dozen people: four naturalists, four students, two technicians and one biologist. They were all students of Luis E. Sánchez-Vargas, who is director of the Herpetological Museum of Cuenca and a specialist in amphibian taxonomy.
The team started by going to the cloud forest region, where they saw about a dozen tropical species of frogs. They also observed a number of species of frogs in the rain forest, including the frogs of the genus Pseudacris, but they did not photograph any of these species.
One day later, they went to Ecuador’s tropical rainforest, where they explored, with a small team, the cloud forest. They also went to the Ecuadorian Amazon region, where they saw three species of frogs.
The expedition was completed by the team in November of 2007.
The five new species of frogs have been named after the names of Luis E. Sán