By Lauren Wanko
Correspondent
It’s not the frog call most people are used to hearing. It’s the sound that led a team of researchers and scientists to discover a new frog species in New Jersey, called the Atlantic Coast leopard.
“It’s kinda like some groaning type sounds with little chuckles here and there, snores sometimes,” said New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife Senior Zoologist Brian Zarate.
Zarate first heard the sound in Morris County wetlands more than a decade ago.
“So we went out there with some nets and some headlights and we found this frog and we brought it back in and it looked like a leopard frog. And we knew that we had leopard frogs here in New Jersey, the southern leopard frog, but this one didn’t quite sound or look like that one,” he said.
Zarate began working with a Rutgers University researcher who discovered the same frog in New York. He says the frog’s location makes the finding especially significant.
“I think in a place like this metropolitan kind of mid-Atlantic tri-state area you don’t get a lot of situations where you have new species anymore because this has been such a well studied area,” he said.
It’s the genetic sample that became the key piece of evidence the scientists needed to make the determination. Researchers took toe clips from the amphibian and sent very small tissue samples to the lab for genetic testing, which were compared to many other frog samples. As for the toe, that regrows.
“When you compared it to the two species we thought it might be related to — the northern leopard frog and the southern leopard frog — it turned out that it was more closely related to a different frog and that’s really exciting because it looks like a leopard frog,” said New Leopard Frog Species Report Co-Author and Professor of Biology at Rutgers University Joanna Burger.
Rutgers University led the team, which included researchers from other universities and the state. The Atlantic Coast leopard frog needs large, open marshes, says Burger, who insists the discovery highlights the importance of protecting the environment.
“I think the really important lesson that we can learn here is 1) it’s still possible to find new species even in a really dense area like the New York City area. And the second thing is it tells us is it’s very difficult to know which part of the environment is really critical for some species,” Burger said.
The Atlantic Coast leopard frog’s been found in scattered areas across the state’s wetlands, says Zarate.
“So that’s a great thing. There’s a lot of other species in New Jersey that havea much more limited distribution so this frog already has a bit of a frog leg up over other rare species,” he said.
Scientists here have a lot more work ahead, including understanding the conditions the amphibian needs to thrive long-term. Right now the frog is hibernating, but it will wake up late winter, early spring. Zarate and his team will then head back into the wetlands, survey, collect additional data and listen for the frog’s call.
