Kermit the Frog’s distant live-action cousin has just been discovered in the jungles of Costa Rica. The new species, Diane’s Bare-hearted Glassfrog (Hyalinobatrachium dianae), is most remarkable for its translucent underbelly (hence the name “glassfrog”) and its bulging white eyes, which look just like Kermit’s!
The frog evaded discovery as long as it did because of its remote location in the tropical Caribbean foothills of Costa Rica and because its mating call sounds just like an insect’s call – the scientists who discovered the frog described its call as “a single tonal long metallic whistle-like note.”
Brian Kubicki, Stanley Salazar and Robert Puschendorf discovered the frog living between 400m and 800m up in the mountains. Kubicki, the senior scientists, named it after his mother, Janet Diane Kubicki.
