Mercurana myristicapalustris

Mercurana is a genus of arboreal frogs belonging to the family Rhacophoridae. The genus was named from the only known species Mercurana myristicapalustris, which was described in 2013 from the Western Ghats of Kerala, India. The generic name was derived from and given as a tribute to Freddie Mercury, the late vocalist of the British rock band Queen, in combination with the Latin name for "frog" (Rana, which is also the name of the most common frog genus). The frog is different from other related frogs in that it has extensively webbed toes, lives only in swampy lowlands, and lays its eggs on mud with which it carefully mixes leaf litter.

==Discovery and etymology== The type species (holotype) of Mercurana was collected on 18 May 2012 from bushes at the periphery of a temple compound, Arippa, near Kulathupuzha Reserve Forest, Kollam district, Kerala, India. It was a single adult male. Other two adult males (paratypes) were found from the same locality on 12 July 2012. The formal description was published on 17 April 2013 in the journal Zootaxa. The generic name was derived from 'Mercury' as a tribute to Freddie Mercury, the late singer and lyricist of the British rock band Queen, in combination with the genus name Rana, the most common frog taxa. The scientists chose 'Mercury' because Mercury's "vibrant music was inspiring", in the author's own account. Further, Mercury was of Indian-Parsi origin and spent the majority of his childhood in Panchgani, which is located in the northern part of the mountain range from where the frog was discovered. The specific name is a combination of the words Myristica (a genus of the nutmeg family of trees), and palustris, which is Latin for "swampy", to indicate the swamp forest habitat dominantly represented by Myristica trees in which the frog lives. The forest is particularly noted for its fragile and threatened habitat type in the Western Ghats.