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We folks here at Discoblog get very excited when we hear about the discovery of new animals like the psychedelic fish.

But there’s really no place like Papua New Guinea for chance stumbling upon animals that were once mere storybook creations. On a recent six-week expedition, scientists from Oxford University, the London Zoo, and the Smithsonian Institution discovered 40 new species in a volcano that erupted 200,000 years ago. The notable finds include frogs with fangs and a Bosavi woolly rat, a rodent the size of a small cat—it’s 32.2 inches long and weighs 3.3 pounds.

CNN reports:

“This is one of the world’s largest rats. It’s a true rat, the same kind you find in the city sewers,” said Kristofer Helgen, a biologist from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was part of the expedition team.

Fortunately, the animals in the crater of the volcano are protected from the local hunters since the humans can’t be bothered to hike down into its center. However, the forests around the animals are anything but safe: More than 25 percent of forests in Papua New Guinea have been destroyed or damaged in the past three decades.

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Image: flickr/ new species

Frogs in Scotland are being told to get a room, and for the good of the species, earth-conscious volunteers are helping them. As part of the Action Earth campaign, volunteers have constructed what they describe as an underground beehive to provide a safe place for frogs to mate, since their usual mating location—near ponds or other bodies of water—leaves them vulnerable to predators like foxes and herons.

Guests at the frog hotel, an enclosed, two-tiered space made from wood and recycled materials, are first greeted with a complimentary snack in the compost cafe, where insects and bees abound. They are then led up a ramp into the “sleeping area,” where they can, er, socialize to their hearts’ content, safe from attack and left only in the company of other frogs—up to 20 of them at a time.

(more…)

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• Huge, naturally formed, spinning circles of ice found in British rivers for the first time.

• Scientists want to exhume Galileo’s corpse to check for a genetic eye condition that may explain errors in his observations.

• One gigantic, zoomable photo of President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

• Wild frogs are being eaten to extinction. “Amphibians are already the most threatened animal group yet assessed because of disease, habitat loss and climate change—man’s massive appetite for their legs is not helping.”