Going trekking into the rainforests of Madagascar sounds like a grand adventure - but for one team of researchers, it has also provided a bountiful discovery. Seven new species of tree frogs have been revealed, and their new names pay tribute to Star Trek.
The seven newly discovered frogs don't croak. In fact, their rather unusual calls can even resemble birds and different sound effects used across the sci-fi Star Trek universe, from which the seven new species get their names.
"If you listen to the calls, and have seen any Star Trek film or episode, you can hear that the calls sound a lot like the sound effects that have been used ever since The Original Series. So, it was a logical step. But some among the authors are also Trekkies, myself included, and as fans, we have wanted to name frogs after Star Trek characters for quite some time. This was a perfect opportunity to do so," senior author on the study Assistant Professor Mark D. Scherz, from the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen, told IFLScience.
The frogs were discovered in the most mountainous regions of Madagascar, an island that is home to around 9 percent of all the world's frog species. Originally, the frogs were all thought to be one species: Boophis marojezensis. However, this new research has split the frogs into eight separate species.
"Not only do these frogs sound like sound-effects from Star Trek, but it seems also fitting that to find them, you often have to do quite a bit of trekking! A few species are found in places accessible to tourists, but to find several of these species, we had to undertake major expeditions to remote forest fragments and mountain peaks," said Dr Scherz in a statement.
The new septet lives alongside fast-flowing streams, and it's thought that the frogs may have developed these funky high-pitched calls to be heard above the sound of rushing water.
"There is always some aspect of chance involved in the evolution of sexually selected traits like this. But we do think that it is likely that the soundscape around the frogs makes a big difference in how sounds evolve, and this would make sense as an explanation of the high frequencies," continued Dr Scherz.
The calls also serve another purpose: while the frogs all look quite similar to one another, the differences in calls between species have helped the team identify which species is which, with some of them being very different. The calls are known as advertisement calls, which help the frogs find mates. This, combined with genetic analysis on the frogs, makes the team confident in their seven new additions to the genus Boophis; B. kirki sp. nov., B. picardi sp. nov., B. siskoi sp. nov., B. janewayae sp. nov., B. archeri sp. nov., B. pikei sp. nov., and B. burnhamae sp. nov.
While some of the frogs live in close quarters with one another, others are more spread out across different altitudes and microhabitats. The team hopes that the discovery of these species will help strengthen conservation efforts in the rainforest.
"It seems also fitting that finding these frogs sometimes requires considerable trekking; pursuing strange new calls, to seek out new frogs in new forests; boldly going where no herpetologist has gone before" write the authors in the paper.