NEW STRAITS TIMES (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) 10 January 07 USM students find new species of frog on Jerai
George Town: A new species of frog, known as the Rana monjerai, has been discovered by a team of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) students.
They discovered the species during a five-day expedition to Gunung Jerai in June 2005 but the finding was only announced yesterday after it was confirmed that the frog was indeed a new species.
The Rana monjerai is a medium-sized frog, with the female reaching 75mm and the male measuring between 38mm and 43mm in snout-vent length.
USM researcher Associate Professor Ibrahim Jaafar said the species was only known to exist on Gunung Jerai.
The frogs were found perched on rocks and sand along the mountain stream.
"The body is moderately slender, the head triangular, and long rather than wide.
"The forelimbs are stout and the fingers unwebbed, while the hindlimbs are long, about twice the snout-vent length," he added.
Ibrahim said the name Rana monjerai was chosen to reflect its origin.
It is also a tribute to the Kedah government, the Kedah Forestry Department and the Malaysian Forestry Department, which are the governing authorities of the Gunung Jerai Forest Reserve.
Ibrahim noted that this species and other similar ones are mostly found in streams that are clear, unpolluted and undisturbed.
"Thus, they can be considered as biological indicators for assessing the health of a river system or the environment as a whole," he said at a Press conference here yesterday.
Ibrahim and his good friend, world-renowned frog researcher Prof Masafumi Matsui of the Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies in Kyoto University, have also published a scientific paper on this discovery in the Zoological Science Journal.
"It was Prof Matsui who confirmed that this was a new species during a visit in Nov 2005.
"Both of us then wrote a scientific paper, which was published in June last year," said Ibrahim.
There are altogether 165 frog species in Malaysia, including 105 species in the peninsula.
"Globally, an estimated 10 to 30 million species of frogs have yet to be identified," Ibrahim said.
USM students find new species of frog on Jerai