High in Guangxi's cloud forests, a quiet little frog turns out to be new to science

Survey teams working through Jinzhongshan National Nature Reserve in Guangxi, China, in 2024 and 2025 kept meeting a small brown frog in the leaf litter at 1,700 to 1,800 metres (about 5,600 to 5,900 feet) — well above the streams where its only known relative in the reserve lives, and quiet, with no mating calls heard. Ten specimens, checked with DNA analysis and close physical comparison, now confirm it as a species new to science, a member of the fast-growing Leptobrachella family of leaf-litter frogs. Guangxi alone is now home to 20 known species from that one family — a sign of how much life these subtropical mountains still hold off the record.

SDG 15 · Life on land