Wildlife discoveries in the cloud forest

A three-week survey of a mountain cloud forest has turned up three species that had never been formally recorded before: a glass frog with see-through skin, a beetle the size of a grain of rice, and a moss that grows only on one type of tree bark.

Researchers believe all three may be endemicendemicfound naturally in only one place and nowhere else on Earth to this single patch of forest, though it will take further trips to know for certain.

The team worked mostly at night, since many cloud forest creatures are more active after dark, wading through fog so thick that headlamps lit up only a few metres ahead.

Cloud forests form where moist air rising up a mountainside constantly cools into mist, keeping the ground damp all year and letting mosses and ferns grow in thick layers along every branch.

Scientists say the discoveries strengthen the case for protecting the forest from a proposed logging road nearby, since a species found in only one place can vanish the moment its only home is disturbed.