Rhombophryne vaventy. Image courtesy Frank Glaw Forget Six Flags — Madagascar’s Marojejy Massif is the planet’s real Magic Mountain. Located in one of the country’s poorest economic regions but among the richest in biodiversity, 2,000 species of flowering plants and nearly 300 species of frogs call the mountain’s steep rainforest terrain home. And now, thanks to a recent discovery, it is also home to a frog that’s brand new to science: Rhombophryne vaventy, or the huge rhombus frog.
The discovery originated when Mark Scherz, a 23-year old graduate student at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, tracked down his mentor Frank Glaw at the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology and asked if he could do some taxonomy. Glaw set his charge to work on a lumpy specimen he had collected at his Marojejy campsite in 2005. Figuring out exactly what the frog was and where it fit among its relatives was ...
