New Leopard Frog Found in New York City

There’s a newly discovered vocalist in the Big Apple with a sound unlike any other in the city. In 2008, Jeremy Feinberg, a graduate student at Rutgers University, was wading around in a wetland on Staten Island when he heard something strange. In a swampy patch less than 10 miles from the Statue of Liberty, he picked up on a peculiar chirp-chirp call that was distinct from the croaks of the known leopard frogs on the island. Investigating that song ultimately led Feinberg and his colleagues to a new species of leopard frog – the first amphibian discovered in New York since 1854, and the first found in the U.S. in three decades.