Scientists discovered a frog tadpoles giving birth – Pueblo online

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UPDATED: 01/05/2015 – 10:52

Keywords: tadpole, frog

Source: agencies

Berkeley, USA, 05/01/2015 (The People’s Daily Online) – Most amphibians reproduce by eggs, although there are some species that stop frogs.

However that of a frog tadpoles born mother is something completely new for scientific knowledge.

The mysterious species in question lives in Sulawesi, an island of Indonesia.

Zoologists have followed for decades because they suspected their particular reproductive behavior.

This is one of the 10 or 12 species of frogs that have developed internal fertilization, although it is the only one who gives birth to tadpoles.

It was Dr. Jim McGuire, of the University of California, Berkeley, United States, the first witness this unexpected birth.

In fact, until I witnessed believed he had in his hand a male frog.

But he soon realized that he was holding was a pregnant female, because suddenly left her a bunch of tadpoles.

The nearly 6,000 species of frogs in the world use external fertilization.

That is, the females lay eggs and males fertilize with his sperm.

Although there are other species of frogs that use internal fertilization, this is the only one stop tadpoles.

But how do males to fertilize the eggs inside the female remains a mystery, as the frogs do not have conventional sexual organs to transfer sperm.

two species found in California have developed a cola penis with that perform this task, but it is not the case of Indonesian frog tadpoles stop.

Professor Djoko Iskandar, TECHNOLOGICAL Institute of Bandung in Indonesia and contributor McGuire, was the first scientist to sight this frog with fangs in 1990, but has now been described as a distinct species.

Scientists named Limnonectes larvaepartus.

The characteristic of the species belonging to the family Limnonectes are the two bumps that have in the lower jaw, which resemble two tusks and used to fight.

It is believed that there are over 25 species of Limnonectes in Sulawesi, one of the four largest the Sunda islands, Borneo and Maluku.

However, only four have been described, including occupying this article, the larvaepartus, and little is known about the biology of them all.

Discover a new species is not uncommon, but finding a new form of reproduction yes it is.