While exploring part of the immense , largely untamed wilderness that is the exquisite Amazon rain forest , a squad of scientist came across a rather funny specie of amphibian : a tiny tree diagram toad with a pierce , bat - comparable call .
This unique and highly unusual “ squash racket - articulation ” was an straightaway giveaway that the coinage was unknown to science . “ I had never heard anything like it , ” said one of the anuran ’s spotter , Pedro Peloso .
Other characteristic that set the bizarre species asunder from other known tree frog include prospicient , witch - like pointed finger and toes and the male person ’s curiously large vocal sac . Vocal sacsare stretchy , almost cobwebby membrane of cutis possessed by male calling frogs that can be inflated during vox . The sound come from air being rushed through the larynx and across the vocal chord , which is overdraw by the come across caliber of the pouch . While it ’s known that frogs can produce a productive variety of calls , this is thefirst knownspecies that sounds like a bat .
As avid lover of Black Sabbath , the squad decided to name the two - centimeter - long species after the rock band ’s principal Isaac Bashevis Singer Ozzy Osbourne . Unlike therecently described tarantulaspecies that was identify after John Lennon purely because this singer was an graven image of the artificer , there is reason behind this name choice . Back in1981 , Ozzy Osbourne circumstantially seize with teeth the head off a live squash racquet that was pat at him during a concert . According to Osbourne , he thought that the bat was a rubber replica . description ofDendropsophus ozzyican be found in the journalZootaxa .
The metal money was discovered back in 2009 as Peloso and colleagues embarked on a month - long expeditiousness of Floresta Nacional de Pau - Rosa , an area of the Brazilian Amazon . Twenty - one specimen were collected in total from three dissimilar arena , suggesting that the creature is probably usual and far-flung in the forest . Because this realm is comparatively well - search , the find serve as a reminder of just how copious thebiodiversityin this forest is .
[ ViaNational Geographic , Zootaxa ]
