Pitcher plants and world's small frog

Pitcher plants where they found the small frogs. Some pitcher plants are illegal to take out from Sarawak, and people have been caught to smuggle them out. The natives call them monkey cups. These pitcher plants are found in the Winter Gardens of Auckland Domain.




courtesy: NZ Herald
I am excited, in the land of my birth, they found one of the world's smallest frogs. I was born and grew up in Borneo. I lived there until I was twenty when i went to Canada. I still have strong affinity with Borneo, and I visited last July.

One of the world's tiniest frogs - barely larger than a pea - has been found living in and around carnivorous plants on Borneo island, one of the scientists who made the accidental discovery said today.

Indraneil Das, a scientist at University Malaysia Sarawak, said he and another scientist from Germany were doing field research on frogs in Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo island when they chanced on the tiny species on the edge of a road leading to the summit of a mountain in the Kubah National Park in 2006.

"For biologists, this is a curiosity," Das told The Associated Press.

The frogs were named Microhyla nepenthicola after the pitcher plant species where they live, Das said. A Malaysian museum had listed the species but misidentified it as juveniles of another frog species, he said.

The tubular plants are carnivorous, killing insects such as ants, but do not harm the frogs. Tadpoles grow in the liquid inside the plants.

Adult males of the amphibians range in size between 10.6 millimetres to 12.8 millimetres, Das said.