Lungless Frog

A team of Singapore and Indonesian scientists, led by Dr. David Bickford at the NUS, has discovered a species of frog that has no lungs.

The frog, named Barbourula kalimantanensis, was found at two mountain rivers in Kalimantan last August. It breathes exclusively through its skin.












Scientists postulate that lungs first emerged in fish, possibly as an auxiliary breathing structure, approximately 400 million years ago.

This primitive lung later diverged into the swim bladder in fish, and the characteristic two-lobed lung present in almost all land vertebrates.

Land vertebrates that have lost their lungs are extremely rare - only two groups of salamanders and a single species of caecilians do not have lungs.


Would you like to know more?
- The Biodiversity Crew @ NUS
- The frog which loses its lungs (NUS Research Gallery)