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New Species of Frog Discovered on Staten Island

By Nicholas Rizzi | October 31, 2014 11:45am | Updated on November 3, 2014 8:50am
  A new species of leopard frog was discovered living on Staten Island.
New Species of Leopard Frog Discovered on Staten Island
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STATEN ISLAND — Many scientists travel to remote, exotic locales to discover new species. Jeremy Feinberg just needed to cross the Verrazano Bridge.

The ecologist led a study to confirm a new species of leopard frog on the coast line from Connecticut to North Carolina — with the first being found in Staten Island.

"It wouldn't be a big deal if it was in some remote rainforest, but to have it happen in New York?" said Feinberg, a doctoral candidate at Rutgers University. "It's the first time an amphibian has been discovered in New York since 1864."

The Brooklyn-based ecologist first saw the amphibian in 2012 when he was researching other extinct frogs in the wetlands on the West Shore of Staten Island and heard a strange call.

"This was just an accident," he said. "When I was doing work I heard a random call that was very different than what the southern leopard frog was supposed to be. The rest was history."

Visually the new frog looks similar to others that live on Staten Island, but because of the strange call Feinberg collected samples to test.

They were sent to geneticist Catherine E. Newman and, after a year, they realized that Feinberg had actually stumbled upon a new species. He then searched for more.

"Staten Island was the initial point," he said. "We were amazed over two years to find out this thing doesn't just occur on Staten Island, it occurs all along the East Coast."

In the past, Feinberg said the frog was quite prevalent on Staten Island, but as more people moved into the borough, only a small number still call it home.

For years, the majority of ecologists thought there were only two species of leopard frog that lived along the East Coast. In the 1930s, a paper published by Carl Frederick Kauffeld, former curator of reptiles and director at the Staten Island Zoo, suggested there was a third.

The paper largely fell into obscurity, but Feinberg stumbled upon it in his research and the team decided to name the new species Rana kauffeldi after the Staten Island herpetologist.

"We felt it would be a very fitting tribute," Feinberg said.

"We believe he was right, it seems like he surely was trying to point to this frog."