‘Golden’-eyed creature — with orange elbows — is a new species in Vietnam. See it
Along the road of Cat Tien National Park after a heavy rain, the sound of a bicycle horn cuts through the forest.
The “slow” and “booming” sound resonates between the trees, but it’s not coming from a horn.
The “low-pitched” sound is the call of a 2-inch frog — and a new species.
Kaloula discordia, or the south Vietnamese painted frog, was discovered in a pond along the road of the national park by researchers during fieldwork between 2009 and 2023, according to a study published Dec. 11 in the peer-reviewed journal Herpetozoa.
“Male frogs were recorded calling from small temporary pools and flooded areas from May to November,” researchers said, “(and) the new species is semi-fossorial (burrowing) and quite elusive and is usually active only after periods of heavy rains.”
When the frogs were collected, researchers noticed a few key features that set it apart from other known species.
The south Vietnamese painted frog has a “medium”-sized body with relatively small eyes, according to the study, and a uniformly “dark olive-brown” color on its back.
The frog’s stomach is “beige-gray” with white mottled coloring on its belly and legs, researchers said.
On the frog’s arms, around the elbow, a yellow-to-orange patch stands out from the darker colors, and another orange-brown patch sits on either side of the neck behind the eyes, according to the study.
The animals also have “enlarged” finger disks, the round structures on the end of the fingers that help frogs grip, compared to their toes and other species, researchers said.
“The new species is a good climber,” according to the study. “Males can call when perching a few meters above ground level.”
The species has been identified in the “lowland and hilly, seasonally dry, semi-deciduous and evergreen monsoon forests of southern Vietnam,” but has also appeared across the border in Cambodia, according to the study.
The species name, discordia, refers to the Roman goddess Discordia, researchers said.
“According to the poet Hesiod, this goddess personified not only strife and discord but also competition and labor,” according to the study. “The duality of this name echoes the two aspects of the discovery of the new species. The first aspect is the authors’ hard work and laborious approach in collecting data for the description of the new species. The second challenge pertains to the authors’ internal struggle to choose a politically correct and neutral name for the new species. In modern taxonomy, international teams often face the common challenge of strife and competition; however, this can also lead to overall scientific progress.”
Cat Tien National Park is in southwestern Vietnam, about a 100-mile drive northeast from Ho Chi Minh City.
The research team includes Vladislav A. Gorin, Nikolai L. Orlov, Andrey M. Bragin, Parinya Pawangkhanant, Konstantin D. Milto, Dac Xuan Le, Tan Van Nguyen, Christophe Dufresnes, Chatmongkon Suwannapoom and Nikolay A. Poyarkov.
