The details about the findings was published in the journal Amphibia-Peptila.
By Dileep Thekkethil
![The new golden frog species Pristimantis dorado, named for the legendary city of El Dorado, which Spanish conquistadors never found, represents the natural wealth of Colombia and the American tropics. Credit: Santiago Castroviejo-Fisher](http://www.americanbazaaronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/golden-frog-1.jpg)
A group of biologists have discovered a new species of pale-gold coloured frog from the cloud forests of the Andes in Colombia, South America.
The newly found frog species has been named Pirstimantis dorado, which comes from the Spanish word dorado meaning ‘golden’ and El Dorado, a mythical city of gold which was extensively explored for many centuries by Spanish conquistadores in South America.
Andrew Crawford one of the researchers from Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama said: “The Spaniards assumed Colombia’s wealth was its gold, but today we understand that the real riches of the country lie in its biodiversity.”
The new species of frog was found not very far away from the habitable area near Chingaza National Park, which is close to 10 miles east of Bogota, the capital city of Columbia.
The researchers said that the discovery was made in an area which lies very close to a metropolitan area which has roughly a population of 10 million.
According to biologists, the this is a testimony of proving that a despite the science and research making progress over the years, different species of animals still remains to be discovered in the rich biodiversity.
“With this new species, Colombia now hosts 800 species of amphibians, second only to Brazil in total diversity,” said Crawford. “Every year there are increasing numbers of new species of amphibians discovered and described. At this point we still can’t even estimate what the final diversity of amphibians will be.”
The details about the findings were published in the journal Amphibia-Reptilia.
According to the biologists, the new species belong to a very diverse group of frogs called Pristimantis, which currently has over 465 recognised frog species out of which 205 of them is inhabited in the forests of Colombia.
According to the researchers, the newly found species is one among the smallest of the group with just seven-tenth of an inch. The largest frog in the species grows to two inches in length.
Most of the male frogs attract the female frogs by making distinctive sounds using the vocal sacs or vocal slits. But surprisingly, the male frogs of the new species don’t have the sacs but instead produce a distinct click sound to get the attention of the females.