Darkness and heavy rain, a sound is heard and a man is busy digging the wet ground with his hands and continues to work until this very unique sounding creature comes in front of him. A voice you have never heard before. If you look at the scene of reaching this creature, then the first impression will be of a scene from a scary movie. Frogs are not like zombie movies at all. German scientist Raphael Erst went to the Amazon jungle to identify frogs and saw the scene. His efforts paid off and he discovered a new species of "zombie frog". This frog is orange in color and its size is forty millimeters or one and a half inches. With deforestation in the Amazon region, researchers believe the frog could be at risk of extinction.
"We named the frog not because of its shape, but because of the condition of the researchers," says Ernst. "Certain species that produce very unusual sounds move at night, and in such cases, the researchers look like zombies digging in the ground. " Raphael Ernst adds, "As soon as you hear their voices you can tell that they are a new species. And then you have to dig the ground. You get stuck in the mud because these creatures live underground and outside." They only come out when it rains. "
Discover New Species
Ernest spent two years in the Amazon rainforest in Guyana. He usually worked here alone to study for his Ph.D. Their main goal was to study the effects of human activities on different species of life. Frogs were an example of this. That's when they saw the frog with that particular sound. He describes the moment as "knowing something, seeing something, and being extremely lucky".
Ernst then embarked on a journey with a group of international researchers to learn more about the animal. The study found that there are three different species belonging to the genus Soptoranus.
Multidimensional Risks
The Amazon rainforest is the largest rainforest in the world and at the forefront of biodiversity. The region is also home to most of the underground creatures, including more than a thousand species of frogs. Because frogs breathe through their skin, they are highly sensitive to water quality and climate change. That is, their sensitivities about testing for toxins, deforestation, pollution, or disease are extraordinary. As a result, the number of frogs around the world has dropped significantly. Scientists believe that 70% of the frog population has disappeared.
Elimination of male chickens?
Ernst says increasing human activity in the Amazon region, most of which is illegal, has endangered wildlife survival here. Wildlife in the Amazon region is facing severe difficulties due to mining, timber extraction, animal skins, and tooth extraction, and other such stimuli.