‘Blood’-colored creature — feared extinct for decades — hops onto scientist’s tent
A group of scientists stopped and looked at a large tree that was blocking the trail. They expected the hike up a mountain in central Africa to be difficult, but this was “like an obstacle course,” the expedition’s co-leader Eli Greenbaum told McClatchy News.
Unbeknownst to the researchers, a discovery — in the form of a “blood”-colored creature — was waiting for them at the other end.
The researchers were hiking up Kakanga mountain, a remote peak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to survey local wildlife. Despite the “torrential downpours,” the team reached their destination and set up camp.
As they searched the surrounding forest, the researchers started noticing some “blood”-colored frogs hopping around. “One of the frogs was actually found by one of our porters, Jackson,” Greenbaum said on Feb. 22. “He found it just hopping on my tent.”
Greenbaum, a biologist, recognized the colorful creatures as red-bellied squeaker frogs, or Arthroleptis hematogaster.
Red-bellied squeaker frogs are poorly known and had not been seen since the 1950s. The species was feared extinct, but, over 60 years later, the team had rediscovered these thumbnail-sized animals.
“I had a pretty good idea of what we had found when I saw it because ‘hematogaster,’ the Latin meaning of it is ‘blood belly,’” Greenbaum said. “If you look at the legs and kind of the throat region (of the frog), it does kind of have a color that looks like blood.”
“We were in an area where (red-bellied squeaker frogs) seem to be relatively common,” he said. “It’s just that it was so remote, it’s so difficult to get there. There’s always the concern that if something hasn’t been seen for a long time, maybe it’s extinct.”
Researchers took the first-ever photos of the rediscovered species and collected six frogs as specimens for further analysis.
Greenbaum described the red-bellied squeaker frog as “the last rare piece” of a DNA puzzle. He plans to study how this frog is related to other species in the surrounding Itombwe mountains.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is in central Africa and borders nine countries: Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. The Itombwe mountains are near the border with Burundi.
The joint Texas-Congolese research team included Greenbaum, Michael Harvey, Chifundera Kusamba, Matt Brady, Robert Kizungu Byamana, Chance Bahati Muhigirwa, Mwenebatu Aristote and Wandege Muninga.
The team’s six-week expedition ended in January. During their surveys, they also rediscovered a “spectacular” bird species that had been “lost” for decades.
This story was originally published February 23, 2024 at 10:57 AM with the headline "‘Blood’-colored creature — feared extinct for decades — hops onto scientist’s tent."
