Want to hear a ‘new’ frog?
By Michele Byers, Special Writer
Here in America’s most densely populated metropolitan area, it’s hard to believe there are still new animal species being discovered!
But thanks to modern technology and the work of Rutgers University doctoral student Jeremy Feinberg, the existence of a previously unidentified species of leopard frog was confirmed last fall.
This thumb-sized amphibian, the Atlantic Coast leopard frog, lives in the swamps and marshes of eight East Coast states, including New Jersey. It looks similar to two other leopard frogs, but its mating call is distinctly different.
“It was my dream when I was a teen to find a new species,” Feinberg said. “Then it happened, and I can’t believe it.”
The confirmation of the Atlantic Coast leopard frog solved a nearly 80-year-old mystery that began with a herpetologist named Carl Kauffeld, who worked as the director of the Staten Island Zoo and at the American Museum of Natural History.
In the 1930s, Kauffeld thought this region was home to three distinct species of leopard frog — not two as was believed. But his 1937 paper didn’t have enough proof to convince the scientific community, and Kauffeld died in 1974 without official recognition of his discovery.
Fast forward to 2008 when Feinberg explored a marshy area of Staten Island while researching southern leopard frogs. He knew their mating call by heart, having spent three years studying them at Bass River State Forest in New Jersey.
But what he heard on Staten Island was not familiar.
“When I stepped out of my car and heard the chorus, I thought, ‘Wow, this is strange,’” he recalled. “I had a really strong feeling right then and there” that it was a different species of leopard frog.
Unlike Kauffeld, Feinberg had a host of new technology at his disposal. He and fellow researchers used DNA samples and acoustic measuring techniques to determine the frog on Staten Island was indeed a distinct species.
He also stumbled upon a YouTube video of the same frog taken at the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. It turned out the video was posted by Brian Zarate, now a reptile and amphibian zoologist with the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife.
Zarate became a collaborator in the study, proving the new frog was also in New Jersey.
Word spread, and scientists and hobbyists identified the new frog in a range extending from Connecticut to North Carolina. As Joanna Burger — Feinberg’s doctoral advisor — put it, the frog had been “hiding in plain sight” all these years.
In a nice turn of justice, researchers named the new leopard frog Rana kauffeldi in honor of Kauffeld.
The Atlantic Coast leopard frog’s mating season is from now through mid-April, and New Jersey frog aficionados can hear its cough-like chorus at the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Cape May Point State Park, Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area and Tuckahoe Wildlife Management Area.
But it could be found elsewhere in New Jersey, and citizen scientists can help! Atlantic Coast leopard frogs live in places with large, ponded areas of fresh water. Anyone hearing what they believe is Rana kauffeldi should record the chorus with their phone’s voice memo feature and make sure to get GPS coordinates or an exact location description.
To listen to the call of the Atlantic Coast leopard frog, go to www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm0e9-iCOMM or www.plosone.org/annotation/listThread.action?root=83078.
If you capture a recording and location, contact Matthew Schlesinger — another research collaborator — at matthew.schlesinger@dec.ny.gov.
Michele Byers is executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. For more information, contact her at info@njconservation.org or visit NJCF’s website at www.njconservation.org.