Jodi Rowley can barely contain her excitement when she describes the bizarre new species of frog she helped discover in Vietnam.
Create a free account to read this article
or signup to continue reading
''The males are pink and yellow and have spikes on their back,'' says the Australian Museum scientist.
But the conservation biologist fears publicising her find may contribute to its demise.
''One thing I'm a little concerned about is it being illegally collected for the pet trade,'' says Dr Rowley, the co-ordinator of the Australian Museum Research Institute. ''I've been thinking should I even tell people about this cool frog?''.
Dr Rowley says it is a sad irony that the act of describing a species previously unknown to science - a step that is crucial to convincing any government or conservation agency to protect it - may threaten its survival.
While the thorny tree frog lives in tree holes on the tops of only a few mountains in central Vietnam, Dr Rowley knows the remote location will not deter some collectors.
Dr Rowley's trepidation over whether to publish details is not uncommon.
Her colleague Chris Reid, an entomologist, has held off publishing the details of four new species of native stag beetles for fear they will also become collectors items.
In 2003 Dr Reid was the expert witness in a case against two Japanese men who tried to smuggle more than 1000 stag beetles from Lord Howe Island to Japan, where they could fetch up to $1000 on the illegal pet market.
When scientists publish descriptions of new species they often include information about the location and habitat of the animal, but such transparency turns these papers into guides for collectors.
Not long after American herpetologist Bryan Stuart published a paper on a salamander from Laos he discovered collectors were using his scientific paper as a road map.
It's a vexed issue, says Dr Reid. ''The critical point is if these things are not named then as far as conservation agencies go they don't exist,'' he says.
