Limnonectes larvaepartus - a fanged frog that gives birth to tadpoles

''Limnonectes larvaepartus'' is a species of fanged

frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely semiaquatic group of short-bodied, tailless amphibian vertebrates composing the order (biology), order Anura (coming from the Ancient Greek , literally 'without tail'). Frog species with rough ski ...

in the family

Dicroglossidae The frog family Dicroglossidae occurs in tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa, with most genera and species being found in Asia. The common name of the family is fork-tongued frogs. The Dicroglossidae were previously considered to ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

to northern and western

Sulawesi Sulawesi ( ), also known as Celebes ( ), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the List of islands by area, world's 11th-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Min ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It is unique in that it has

internal fertilization Internal fertilization is the union of an egg and sperm cell during sexual reproduction inside the female body. Internal fertilization, unlike its counterpart, external fertilization, brings more control to the female with reproduction. For inte ...

and gives live birth to

tadpole A tadpole or polliwog (also spelled pollywog) is the Larva, larval stage in the biological life cycle of an amphibian. Most tadpoles are fully Aquatic animal, aquatic, though some species of amphibians have tadpoles that are terrestrial animal, ...

s. Other frog species that have live birth produce froglets.

Discovery

The frog was first mentioned in 1994 under the

nomen nudum In Taxonomy (biology), taxonomy, a ''nomen nudum'' ('naked name'; plural ''nomina nuda'') is a designation which looks exactly like a scientific name of an organism, and may have originally been intended to be one, but it has not been published ...

"''Limnonectes ovovivipar''", which refers to

ovovivipary Ovoviviparity, ovovivipary, ovivipary, or aplacental viviparity is a "bridging" form of reproduction between egg-laying oviparous and live-bearing viviparous reproduction. Ovoviviparous animals possess embryos that develop inside eggs that rema ...

, whereby the tadpoles hatch from their eggs while still inside their mother. In 2014, it was formally named and described by

Djoko Iskandar Djoko Tjahjono Iskandar (born 1950) is an Indonesian herpetologist who studies the amphibians of Southeast Asia and Australasia. He is a professor of biosystematics and ecology at Bandung Institute of Technology in West Java, Indonesia. Iskandar ...

, Ben Evans, and Jim McGuire. Its

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

is derived from

larvae A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect developmental biology, development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typical ...

+ Latin ''partus'' (give birth). The authors collected over 100 specimens for their study and witnessed either direct birth of tadpoles or tadpoles in the

oviducts The oviduct in vertebrates is the passageway from an ovary. In human females, this is more usually known as the fallopian tube. The eggs travel along the oviduct. These eggs will either be fertilized by spermatozoa to become a zygote, or will degen ...

on 19 occasions. They also observed free-living tadpoles in stream-side puddles. In 2015, the

International Institute for Species Exploration The International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) was a research institute located in Syracuse, New York. Its mission was to improve Taxonomy (biology), taxonomical exploration and the cataloging of new species of flora and fauna. Betw ...

names it as one of the "Top 10 New Species" for new species discovered in 2014.

Characteristics

The average male size (from tip of snout to

cloaca A cloaca ( ), : cloacae ( or ), or vent, is the rear orifice that serves as the only opening for the digestive (rectum), reproductive, and urinary tracts (if present) of many vertebrate animals. All amphibians, reptiles, birds, cartilagin ...

) is , while the average female size is . Within Sulawesi, it has been found in the Northern Peninsula and on the western edge of the central core. The dorsum is typically brownish-grey, but can also be reddish-brown or golden-tan. The underside may be yellowish or cream, with a dark spot often marking the upper end of the

tibia The tibia (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...

. Females produce approximately 100 eggs, which hatch as tadpoles in the oviducts and are probably retained there until exhausting their supply of yolk. Apart from yolk, the oviductal tadpoles may also feed on feces and dead siblings. The tadpoles are born into slow-moving streams. They feature well-developed tails, mouthparts and pigmentation at birth. After birth, tadpoles likely self-feed even before

metamorphosis Metamorphosis is a biological process by which an animal physically develops including birth transformation or hatching, involving a conspicuous and relatively abrupt change in the animal's body structure through cell growth and different ...

into froglets. The oviducts have no obvious specializations to accommodate the tadpoles, raising the possibility that the unique breeding mode is the result of a simple behavioral change in fertilization method. It is not known how internal fertilization occurs, as the male frog has no obvious

intromittent organ An intromittent organ is any external organ of a male organism that is specialized to deliver sperm during copulation. Intromittent organs are found most often in terrestrial species, as most non-mammalian aquatic species fertilize their eggs ...

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q18701640 larvaepartus Amphibians of Sulawesi Endemic fauna of Indonesia Amphibians described in 2014