New Frog Species Also has a Doppelgänger

Could a new species of frog also have a doppelgänger?

When Malaysian herpetologist Juliana Senawi discovered an unfamiliar orange-striped, yellow-speckled frog that lived in the swamplands of the Malay Peninsula, she and other researchers wondered if this colorful, bold creature could be different from others nearby.

Just 10 years earlier, a similar frog species was discovered that had been written off as a creature from an Indonesian island close to 450 miles to the west. Furthermore, fellow herpetologist Chann Kin Onn of the University of Kansas, whom Senawi showed her findings to, believed that this frog could have been formerly misidentified.

"The frog was originally confused with the Siberut Island Frog, which is a species that occurs on Siberut Island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, due to their similar appearance in color-pattern," Onn said, in a news release.

Despite their striking similarities, Onn and other researchers had a strong suspicion that the frog from Malaysia wasn't the Siberut Island frog.

Could genetic code from the same frog species have jumped eastward to a remote island across the Indian Ocean and then across the Strait of Malacca into the Malaysian interior?

Extensive genetic analysis revealed that this frog was genetically distinct from its Siberut Island doppelgänger, as the researchers predicted.

Furthermore, following a thorough analysis and testing, researchers decided to name the frog Hylarana centropeninsularis because it's currently only known from parts of the central Peninsular Malaysia.

"The name is constructed from the Latin word ‘centro' that means center and ‘peninsularis,' in reference to Peninsular Malaysia," Onn added, who has also extensively studied other frogs and lizards.

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Herpetologica.