10 Women Directed Horror Films to Watch This October*
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014) Dead Hooker in a Trunk (Jen and Sylvia Soska, 2009) A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014) Honeymoon(Leigh Janiak, 2014) The Hitch-hiker (Ida Lupino, 1953) Lyle (Stewart Thorndike, 2014) Messiah of Evil(Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz, 1973) Mirror, Mirror (Marina Sargenti, 1990) Trouble Every Day(Claire Denis, 2001) The Voices(Marjane Satrapi, 2014)
*Can’t get enough of women-directed horror? Check out last year’s recommendations HERE.
Scientists have discovered six new species of frog the size of a thumbnail in the forests of Mexico, with one earning the distinction of Mexico’s smallest frog.
All six species are smaller than a British 1p coin—around 15mm long—when fully grown. Adult males of the tiniest of these species, named Craugastor candelariensis, grow to only 13mm.
The newly discovered species are known as ‘direct-developing’ frogs: rather than hatching from eggs into tadpoles like most frogs, they emerge from the eggs as perfect miniature frogs. And they’re so small that they’re right at the bottom of the forest food chain.
The discovery, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, London’s Natural History Museum, and the University of Texas at Arlington, is published in the journal Herpetological Monographs.
“Until now these new species have gone unnoticed because they’re small and brown and look really similar to other frogs,” said Tom Jameson, a researcher at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and University Museum of Zoology, who led the study.
The study involved gathering almost 500 frog specimens from museums around the world, which had been collected in Mexico, and using new methods to categorize the relationships between them.
The new species have been named Craugastor bitonium, Craugastor candelariensis, Craugastor cueyatl, Craugastor polaclavus, Craugastor portilloensis, and Craugastor rubinus. Jameson is particularly pleased with the name cueyatl—it means ‘frog’ in the indigenous language, Nahuatl, spoken in the Valley of Mexico where this species was found.
“We chose the name cueyatl to honor the rich human history of the Valley of Mexico, and the local people who have probably known these frogs far longer than we have,” he said.
Known as ’micro-endemics’, some of the newly discovered frogs may occur only in one small area, such as a hilltop in a certain part of Mexico. This makes them incredibly vulnerable.
“We named Craugastor rubinus after the garnet mines in the hillside where they’re found,” said Jameson. “Sadly, it will only take the expansion of one mine and these frogs could be gone.”
nothing is worse than software that tells people when I’m online or when I read their message or when I’m typing something. I always want to be as unknowable in my silence as god
