American bullfrog DNA has turned up not far from the only known habitat of Pithecopus rusticus — a small, critically endangered tree frog that lives in Brazil.
Bullfrogs are native to the eastern United States, but invasive elsewhere. Finding genetic traces of them in the high-elevation grasslands of Santa Catarina could spell signs of trouble for P. rusticus, researchers report in the March Journal for Nature Conservation.
These neon green, orange and black frogs are small. Adult males are about 35 millimeters from snout to vent — somewhere between the diameter of a golf ball and a quarter. After the species’ initial discovery in the Água Doce community in
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