The humid vegetation alongside the streams of Madagascar is populated with puny, brown frogs. If you’re quiet, in the dark, they will fill the air with subtle mating calls that sound like the earth itself is gurgling; like the cracking open of a creaky door; or like the clinking of two empty glasses.
With your eyes, however, the frogs may be hard to spot — they camouflage themselves with mud — and even harder to accurately tell apart.
In fact, until recently, scientists had only formally described 14 different species of the Malagasy common brown frog (Mantidactylus subgenus Brygoomantis). Now, after poring over the results from 30 years of fieldwork, scientists have named and described 20 additional species of frogs that had been previously overlooked — paving the way for many more frog discoveries in the future.
