First Lungless Frog Found

The Indonesian frog pictured above respires entirely through its skin and lacks lungs, a new study says. The trait, though rare in nature, may have evolved because of the amphibian's habitat of oxygen-rich, fast-moving water—which might more easily carry away a frog with air-filled lungs.

(nationalgeographic) -- The first recorded species of frog that breathes without lungs has been found in a clear, cold-water stream on the island of Borneo in Indonesia.

The frog, named Barbourula kalimantanensis, gets all its oxygen through its skin.

"Nobody knew about the lunglessness before we accidentally discovered it doing routine dissections," study lead author David Bickford, a biologist at the National University of Singapore, said in an email.

His colleague Djoko Iskandar at the Bandung Institute of Technology in Indonesia first described the frog in 1978 from one specimen. About 15 years later, fishermen found another individual.

"Each specimen was deemed so valuable that scientists did not want to sacrifice the animals for dissection," Bickford said. full story