# Purple frog delights scientists

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/purple-frog-delights-scientists/208297>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 19, 2003, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/purple-frog-delights-scientists/208297 "2003-10-19T02:49:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/purple-frog-delights-scientists/208297/1 "2003-10-19T02:49:26Z")

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[Purple frog delights scientists -

It has to be one of the strangest looking frogs ever discovered.]([http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3200214.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3200214.stm))

> [@](#):
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> The chubby, seven-centimetre-long, purple amphibian with a pointy snout was found hopping around in the Western Ghats, a range of hills in western India.
> 
> Scientists have given it the name Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, from the Sanskrit word for nose (nasika); batrachus, meaning frog; and Sahyadri, the name for its mountain home.
> 
> Its head appears too small for its body and it looks more like a squat, grumpy blob than a living creature.
> 
> But to the scientists who describe it in the journal Nature, the frog is a beautiful find because of what it tells them about Earth history.

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**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/purple-frog-delights-scientists/208297/2 "2003-10-19T03:50:06Z")

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I like the lead sentence in the [Times of India’s](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=237513) article on the little guy:

> [@](#):
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> The discovery of a unique, frog-like creature in India’s Western Ghats is making biologists go “well well well.”

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**Author:** ![Forbin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5e9695/32.png) [@Forbin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Forbin)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/purple-frog-delights-scientists/208297/3 "2003-10-19T04:58:39Z")

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[Everybody do the Michigan rag.  
Everybody do the Michigan rag.](http://members.iinet.net.au/~cybacolt/mjfrog/faq.html)

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**Author:** ![quiltguy154](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/ad7895/32.png) [@quiltguy154](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quiltguy154)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2003, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/purple-frog-delights-scientists/208297/4 "2003-10-19T11:02:03Z")

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Any relation to the “Vatican Rag?” And NO, not L’Osservatore Romano.😉