Professors Bossuyt and Biju discovered the frog in the
Western Ghats Mountains of India, home to very unusual species found nowhere else
on the planet.
Its closest living relatives are a family of frogs called sooglossidae. |
Scientists have recently discovered a very strange breed of frog. It's a kind of "living fossil" whose great great grandparents lived during the time of the dinosaurs.
The doughnut-shaped, purple frog was found in a "biodiversity hotspot" in the mountains of southern India. It is bloated and purple and has very tiny eyes. Look how small the head is.
Scientists have given it the name Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, from the Sanskrit word for nose (nasika); batrachus, meaning frog; and Sahyadri, the name for its mountain home. "Its head appears too small for its body and it looks more like a squat, grumpy blob than a living creature."