A frog found in Ecuador's western Andean forest seems to change its skin texture in minutes and it apparently copies the texture on which it sits. In the beginning, the frog was found by a Case Western Reserve Univ. PhD student and her husband, who is a project manager at Cleveland Metroparks' Natural Resources Division. The amphibian is considered to be the first, which have the capability to alter its texture.

A manuscript was coauthored by the researchers, Katherine and Tim Krynak, and colleagues from Universidad Indoamérica and Tropical Herping, which explained about the new animal and its skin texture plasticity in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society this week.

According to them, their findings suggest how species have been identified. According to Katherine, the capability to change skin texture for reflecting its surroundings may help P. mutabilis hide itself from birds and other predators.

When they found the frog, Katherine and Tim Krynak captured it and put it into a cup with a lid prior to restarting their search for wildlife. They called it 'punk rocker' due to the thorn-like spines, which covered its body.

According to Katherine, "I then put the frog back in the cup and added some moss. The spines came back... we simply couldn't believe our eyes, our frog changed skin texture. I put the frog back on the smooth white background. Its skin became smooth". It has also been found that a close relative of the newly discovered frog is also there, which have the same texture-changing quality, but was not known earlier.