A new frog species has been discovered in Panama and will be announced in the December issue of Journal of Herpetology by a research team led by STRI former visiting scientist Joseph Mendelson, from Zoo Atlanta.

The amphibian, a type of tree frog with bright reddish- and green-colored skin that grows to a length of 122 mm was discovered by Edgardo Griffith while working with Mendelson in El Valle. Mendelson was head of the Amphibian Recovery Project in 2005 under the STRI umbrella. Today, Griffith is the director of the El Níspero zoo's Amphibian Conservation Center in the Valle de Anton, working with the Houston Zoo.

The frog already "is in danger of extinction because the habitat to which it belongs is being degraded by the construction of roads and houses," according to Griffith.

The amphibian, a type of tree frog with bright reddish- and green-colored skin that grows to a length of 122 mm.

The scientific process to determine whether the frog was a new species took two years and involved characterizing its habitat, diet and morphology and comparing it with other frogs in Costa Rica and Colombia. The official taxonomic description of the species will be made based on analysis conducted by molecular biologists.

A name will be given to the new species  when the research is completed and then it will be published in the U.S. Journal of Herpetology.