While a lot of people hope to get in contact with extraterrestrial beings willing to reveal to us the secrets of the Universe, our own planet still has plenty of mysteries to unveil. If you’ve also been a fan of the famous Harry Potter series, you’ll probably like the newly-discovered species of ‘chocolate frog’.
IndianExpress.com writes about the Litoria mira, a term inspired by the Latin word ‘mirum’, meaning surprised or strange. For us, it means the new species in question. The so-called ‘chocolate frog’ that seems to be coming straight from the world of Harry Potter was first discovered by the Australian scientist Steve Richards back in 2016. After a long period of research and testing done along with Paul Oliver from Queensland Museum and Griffith University, the conclusion was that indeed the animal is a new species.
Living in the rainforests of New Guinea
The common green tree frog from Australia and also known as Liroria cerulean is a relative of the Litoria mira. The ‘chocolate frog’ was found living in the rainforests of New Guinea. Australia and New Guinea were connected by land a few million years ago, which is why the two frog species are related.
Paul Oliver declared for Sci-News.com:
Resolving the biotic interchange between these two regions is critical to understanding how the rainforest and savannah habitat types have the expanded and contracted over time of both.
He continued by saying:
Estimates for divergence of the new species in our study shows that in the Pliocene (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago) there was still connectivity between the two species the across lowland tropical habitats of northern Australia and New Guinea.
The discovery was published in a paper from the Australian Journal of Zoology.
