THE round-tongued floating frog, a species of frog in the Dicroglossidae family, has been found for the first time in Shenzhen.

    One of the smallest frogs in China, the frog, about the size of a human fingernail, was found by Li Cheng, a phone structure engineer who also has a keen interest in wildlife.

    “In my spare time, I often do some research on wildlife and plants. The frogs were found when we walked about 1.5 kilometers along a creek during a night observation,” said Li during an interview with the Shenzhen Economic Daily in Huaqiangbei, a commercial street renowned for its electronics markets, where Li has worked for a decade.

    “There are some frogs there,” shouted a photographer surnamed Huang during the night observation. Li and the others looked to a pool of water where some small frogs were jumping.

    Shenzhen has recorded 23 types of frogs, mostly on Dapeng Peninsula, and Li said that he had never seen this type.

    “This is the first time I have found a new species in Shenzhen, despite the fact that I have found several new species in the past in other cities,” Li said.

    They confirmed the species after spending all night consulting references, finding that the round-tongued floating frog also hadn’t been reported in neighboring Hong Kong.

    According to Li, the new discovery showed that the biological diversity of Shenzhen had been underestimated. There are probably new species yet to be discovered in the well-preserved areas in Dapeng.

    Li kept one specimen of the frog, and the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences confirmed Li’s discovery.

    Round-tongued floating frogs are mainly distributed in locations scattered around Southeast Asia, Yunnan and Guangxi.

    (Han Ximin)