#microhylidae

Brook's Squat Frog aka Brook's Burrowing Frog (Glyphoglossus brooksi), family Microhylidae, Sarawak, Borneo

This species had not been seen for 14 years, when this individual was observed in the forest after a heavy rain. (2025)

Max length of up to 7 cm.

World Frog Day!

Here is a tiny frog from one side of the world:

This is Mini mum. That is a 10 euro cent coin.

And here is a tiny frog from the other side of the world:

This is Microhyla nepenthicola. That is a 50 Malasyian sen coin.

Frogs have evolved to extremely reduced body sizes gobsmackingly often. It is one of the coolest things. And basically every time they do this, they become more similar to one another, and also they lose whole structures, like ears, fingers, and toes.

Painted Globular Frog (Uperodon taprobanicus), family Microhylidae, order Anura, Andhra Pradesh, India

Also known as the Sri Lankan bullfrog, Sri Lankan painted frog, Sri Lankan kaloula, Ceylon kaloula, or Indian painted frog

Phylogeographic pattern and taxonomic revision of the Kaloula baleata species complex (Amphibia, Anura, Microhylidae) with description of two new species from Indochina

Vladislav A. Gorin, Nikolai L. Orlov, Andrey M. Bragin, et al.

Abstract

Despite increased attention by molecular taxonomists, the herpetofauna of Southeast Asia still hides many undescribed species among far-ranging taxa. In this study, we re-examine the mitochondrial diversity of painted frogs of the microhylid genus Kaloula, based on ~2,455 bp of published and new 12S and 16S rRNA sequences, and describe two new species from the tropical forests of southern Vietnam and central Laos based on integrative evidence. These species, which belong to the K. baleata complex, feature species-level mitochondrial divergence (> 4.4% at 16S rRNA) and are both morphologically well-differentiated from each other and from the recently described K. indochinensis, to which they were previously confounded...

Read the paper here:

Frog is the way forward ✨