close menu

Nature Now Has a Kermit AND a Cookie Monster

Obligatory Kermit flail.

Pictures of glass frogs have been going viral since the Internet figured out that you can see their insides through their glassy, transparent skin. But now there’s another reason to share glass frogs — a species discovered earlier this year looks just like a real-life Kermit the Frog.

The new species, Hyalinobatrachium dianae, is described in the journal Zootaxa by Brian Kubicki and colleagues at the Costa Rican Amphibian Research Center. Three specimens were used to outline the new “bare-hearted” glass frog, and it “was named in honor of the senior author’s mother Janet Diane Kubicki,” as a Facebook post from the center explains.

KermitSci_PIC

Kubicki doesn’t comment on the Kermit connection in the paper, but when the species hit the web earlier this week the response was instantaneous. We’ve found a real-life muppet! Yaaayyyyyyy! But it’s not the first.

There’s a sea sponge Cookie Monster too:

KermitSci_Cookie

Photographer Mauricio Handler took the shot above, which shows three stove-pipe sponges fused together in a Monster-like expression. These sponges can’t eat cookies, but they can filter water for food particles like nobody’s business.

As for the other Muppets…I’m not sure nature can accommodate a 8-foot, 2-inch tall canary or a scientifically literate melon.

Blind Competitor Plays Magic: The Gathering with Ingenious Use of Braille

Blind Competitor Plays Magic: The Gathering with Ingenious Use of Braille

article
“Snatoms” Want to Change the Way Kids Learn Chemistry

“Snatoms” Want to Change the Way Kids Learn Chemistry

article
James McAvoy Didn't Realize SPLIT Was Setting Up a Sequel

James McAvoy Didn't Realize SPLIT Was Setting Up a Sequel

video