Scientists Find Previously Unknown Cambodian Frog - Has Blue Bones, Green Blood - Mongabay

[hatrack]

Researchers have discovered a previously unknown species of frog in Cambodia. The amphibian is unusual in that is has green blood and turquoise-colored bones, a result of its transparent skin and a pigment that may make the species unpalatable to predators, according to Fauna & Flora International (FFI).

The Samkos bush frog (Chiromantis samkosensis) was discovered along with three other undescribed species of frog — the Cardamom bush frog (Philautus cardamonus), Smith's frog (Rana faber), and the Aural horned frog (Megophrys auralensis) — during surveys of the Cardamom Mountains, a remote range in Cambodia. The research turned up more than 40 amphibian species not previously known to occur in Cambodia.

FFI says the Samkos bush frog stands out among the new discoveries for its "strange" bone and blood color, thought to be the result of biliverdin, a metabolic waste product usually processed in the liver.

"In this species, the biliverdin is passed back into the blood giving it a green colour; a phenomenon also seen in some lizards," explained FFI in a news release. "The green biliverdin is visible through the frog’s thin, translucent skin, making it even better camouflaged and possibly even causing it to taste unpalatable to predators."

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2008/1218-frog_ffi.html

[Whoa_Nelly]

1. Possibly unpalatable, but darn cute!

[here_is_to_hope]

2. I wonder if they have licked it yet?

I mean, ya gotta know, right?

[guardian]

3. And another story confirming the ongoing mass extinction

Hundreds of New Species Found in Australian Reefs
Wednesday September 24, 2008

Over three hundred species of soft corals have been recorded by scientists studying the species diversity of coral reefs at various locations off Australia's coasts. As many as half of the soft corals found by the researchers are believed to be species not previously known to science. The research was conducted as part of the Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems (or CReefs) program, a global research project aimed at collecting species diversity data for coral reefs around the world.

The scientific team made three expeditions to different coral reefs in the coastal waters of Australia. The first expedition in April 2008, explored the reefs around Lizard Island. Lizard Island is a granite island located in the the Great Barrier Reef, in the waters northeast of Cairnes, Australia. The second expedition in June 2008, also explored the Great Barrier Reef, this time in the region of Heron Island, an island south of Lizard Island and located in the waters between Cairnes and Brisbane. The third expedition in late August and early September 2008, explored an isolated reef off of Australia's remote west coast, Ningaloo Reef, located about 1200 kilometers north of Perth.

In addition to the many soft corals the scientists logged during the three expeditions, there were other significant discoveries. The researchers found dozens of crustacean species, including some tanaid crustaceans, a group of odd shrimp-like animals that have claws that are longer than the rest of their body. There were also numerous sightings of amphipod crustaceans, many of which were new to science. A very rare amphipod crustacean was also recorded. The crustacean belongs to the Maxillipiidae family and only a few species in this family have been recorded worldwide.

The scientists also observed the rare Cassiopea jellyfish and its unique behavior. The jellyfish was photographed resting upside-down on the ocean floor with its tentacles floating above it soaking in sunlight and enabling the algae that lives in its tentacles to capture sunlight for photosynthesis.

[jpak]

4. What a stupid post

Hot summer will bleach Coral reef

http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2008/s2450775.htm

TONY EASTLEY: Predictions of a long hot summer may please many Australians but it's not good news for one of the country's top tourist attractions.

There's a high risk the Great Barrier Reef will suffer severe coral bleaching with sea temperatures expected to be above average.

Meteorologists in the US and Australia have used satellites to predict the death of corals in the Great Barrier Reef and in the Coral Sea.

<more>

Coral reefs decimated by 2050, Great Barrier Reef's coral 95% dead

http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1117-corals.html

Australia's Great Barrier Reef could lose 95 percent of its living coral by 2050 should ocean temperatures increase by the 1.5 degrees Celsius projected by climate scientists. The startling and controversial prediction, made last year in a report commissioned by the World Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Queensland government, is just one of the dire scenarios forecast for reefs in the near future. The degradation and possible disappearance of these ecosystems would have profound socioeconomic ramifications as well as ecological impacts says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, head of the University of Queensland's Centre for Marine Studies.

Hoegh-Guldberg, speaking at the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, says the most important threat facing the Great Barrier Reef and other reefs of the world is higher sea temperatures that cause thermal stress for corals.

Corals are tiny animals that live in colonies and derive nourishment and energy from a symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae algae known as dinoflagellates. Coral reefs are formed over the course of thousands of years as limestone skeletons constructed by corals accumulate and form a structural base for living corals. Research indicates that is takes roughly thousand years for a reef to add a meter of height. Individual corals are capable of faster growth -- about one meter every hundred years -- but wave action and other forms of disturbance moderates overall reef growth.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest reef, stretching more than 2,300km along the northeast coast of Australia. Made up of about 2,900 unconnected coral reefs and roughly 900 islands, the Great Barrier Reef is home to over 1,500 species of fish and 400 species of coral making it one of the most important marine ecosystems on Earth. Scientists consider it Earth's largest living organism which makes it the only individual living thing visible from space.

<more>

NASA Helps Researchers Diagnose Recent Coral Bleaching at Great Barrier Reef

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/coral_bleach.html

An international team of scientists are working at a rapid pace to study environmental conditions behind the fast-acting and widespread coral bleaching currently plaguing Australia's Great Barrier Reef. NASA's satellite data supply scientists with near-real-time sea surface temperature and ocean color data to give them faster than ever insight into the impact coral bleaching can have on global ecology.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is a massive marine habitat system made up of 2,900 reefs spanning over 600 continental islands. Though coral reefs exist around the globe, researchers actually consider this network of reefs to be the center of the world's marine biodiversity, playing a critical role in human welfare, climate, and economics. Coral reefs are a multi-million dollar recreational destinations, and the Great Barrier Reef is an important part of Australia's economy.

<snip>

Bleaching occurs when warmer than tolerable temperatures force corals to cast out the tiny algae that help the coral thrive and give them their color. Without these algae, the corals turn white and eventually die, if the condition persists for too long.

"Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the largest and most complex system of reefs in the world, and like so many of the coral reefs in the world’s oceans, it's in trouble," said oceanographer Gene Carl Feldman of the Ocean Biology Processing Group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

<more>

Massive coral bleaching strikes Great Barrier Reef

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2164-massive-coral-bleaching-strikes-great-barrier-reef.html

An epidemic of coral bleaching has hit the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the world's largest coral reef, for the second time in four years. It is also reported to be spreading through the coral islands of the South Pacific.

An extensive survey of the Great Barrier Reef carried out over the last month has revealed "widespread bleaching", says Terry Done, chief conservation scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. The survey was prompted by concerns at the start of 2002 and the full results will be published soon, he says.

Coral bleaching occurs when high sea temperatures force the algae that give coral its colour out of the coral polyps. Usually, bleached coral recovers in the next cool season, but if all the algae are lost, the coral will die and reefs will crumble.

<more>

Thomas Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance in Chappaqua, New York, says he has received reports in recent days of bleached, dead coral across much of the South Pacific, including Tahiti, the Cook Islands, New Caledonia and Fiji.

[Mugweed]

7. So what you're saying is

that because previously unidentified species are being discovered, identified species are not dying off en-masse? That's your argument, no? Because we keep finding new stuff, lots of the old stuff isn't having any trouble surviving.

[applegrove]

5. Cute little froggy.

[tom_paine]

6. The Spock Frog n/t