discovery can come in the most unexpected of places . Case in point : Biologists have recently discovered and described a novel species of emmet that they found in the puke of a frog .
Researchers from the University of Rochester were meditate the feed ecology of the piffling devil poison frog ( Oophaga sylvatica ) that lives in the elevated rainforests of northwestern Ecuador . Their diet is particularly interesting for scientists since poison salientian get alkaloids in their skin toxins from the prey they eat . They set up that between 40 and 86 percent of the salientian ’ diet was made up of ant , include 44 different genus .
But among the 300 devil frogs they canvass , one somebody ’s stomach revealed more than simply their last repast – it was also shown to curb an strange coinage of emmet .
“ Sometimes people reckon that our man is very well explore , " lead generator Christian Rabeling toldNational Geographic . “Nothing could be further from the truth . "
The Lenomyrmex hoelldobleri specimen get wind in the frog vomitive by the researchers . Rabeling C , Sosa - Calvo J , O’Connell LA , Coloma LA , Fernández F ( 2016 )
NamedLenomyrmex hoelldobleriafter the celebrated evolutionary life scientist and ant lover Bert Hölldobler , the worker pismire is just under 4 millimeters ( 0.15 column inch ) long . Other than it being a favorite meal of the little devil poison frog , not much else is known about the specie as this is the only known individual .
But who knows , since frog are much good equipped to happen newfangled species of ants than humans , biologists could be using this method to find new coinage again in the hereafter .
The study resolve that “ the study of vertebrate stomach content is not only a room of studying the trophic ecology of craniate themselves , but also an interesting source of cryptical and newfangled arthropod species , including ants . ”
The full study can be found in the capable - access code journalZooKeys .
