Ghost Frog Found: Scientists Stumble Upon Species Missing Since 1902 reads the headline about the rediscovery of Alsodes vittatus but I am very confused because there appears to be an Observation on iNaturalist? And it is Research Grade? (And, though critically endangered, not obscured though I thought that was the practice?)
Or is the iNat Observation the rediscovery?
Please someone explain this to me like I do not have training. 
Iām not sure about this specific case, but often in the Tarantula world obvs will be posted by the people who describe new species, so there will be obvs of species that havenāt even been described from the researchers in the process of getting that species registered. Could have been someone involved with the research.
Hereās the original paper:
https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/135523/
The localties are different and they donāt mention the iNat observation from February 2024.
Apparently the article describes specimens discovered in 2015 but only now being reported in a publication. But this iNat record from 2024 is a first for iNat.
The specimens mentioned in the paper have been collected in 2015, way before iNat obs (which is still a great finding). Also the species is listed as āData Defficientā by the UICN, possibly explaining why the location is not blurred?
I read it differently:
In 2015 and 2016, new expeditions led by Claudio Correa and Juan Pablo Donoso managed to locate two populations of Alsodes in the same area, but the individuals they saw lacked A. vittatusā distinctive white or yellow stripe on the back, suggesting they likely belonged to a different species.
In 2023 and 2024, Claudio Correa and Edvin Riveros followed the reconstructed route, entering the former estate from the southeastern end.
There, they found two populations of A. vittatus in the Lolco and Portales river basins in La AraucanĆa region, confirming the existence of this enigmatic species after more than a century without records.
edit to note: this is from the article I linked, not the paper.
That would be amazing, if it meant there were three localities for this!
(We have a Critically Endangered ghost frog on Table Mountain)
Same thing happened with Omilteme Cottontail.
I wrote to the primary author of the paper and they said that https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/199505428 might be Alsodes vittatus, but it might also be something else:
āā¦ it closely resembles the Vittatus we saw in the new populations described in the publication, especially because of the dark color flanking the vertebral line. However, the location of this record is quite far south of the described populations, in an area where we know there are genetically different Alsodes (study in progress). Furthermore, we know there are populations of other Alsodes species with individuals with or without stripes. In other words, it could be Vittatus, but it would need to be investigated.ā