The purple frog

I never saw a purple cow,

I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you, anyhow,

This frog is really damn purple.

Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis was recently discovered in a remote, mountainous area of India, where it lives underground for all but two months of the year. No wonder no one's seen it before.



A quote from the article:

"New species are found all the time—about 70 are found each year—but almost always they are related to other known species," [evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges] said. "This one is not; it is not closely related to anything and distantly related to a family in the Seychelles. That makes it very remarkable."

Yikes. 70 species a year? I think most of them are insects; still, that's an awful lot of previously-undiscovered species. I wonder if it's keeping up with the number of species going extinct every year. And I wonder how many undiscovered species go extinct every year, things we've never seen and will never see...



(Hey, I just brought myself back around to the purple cow poem. Not bad for a workday morning.)