#frog

#frog

The Little Frogs That Can't Even Jump RightBrachycephalus is a genus of tiny Brazilian frogs commonly called pumpkin toadlets. The various species of these frogs average around a half-inch long! These are such small vertebrates that they suffer from a common problem of miniaturization, in that certain organs are just too small to do the job we assume they are for. See, pumpkin toadlets are very bad at the one thing frogs are known for: jumping. They can take off just fine, but land in a fairly haphazard (and comical) way.

Adult Frogs Are Stimulated to Regrow a Lost LegRegenerating amputated limbs is a natural thing for salamanders, starfish, crabs, and lizards, but not humans, nor for frogs under normal circumstances. For humans, growing a new limb is a dream, although we can regenerate skin and liver tissue. Research into this area takes us to an animal a step above salamanders. Scientists at Tufts University have been able to spur growth of a new leg on several adult African clawed frogs. The frogs' freshly-amputated leg stumps were covered with a silicone cap containing a cocktail of five drugs. Some of these drugs inhibited the creation of scar tissue over the wound, while others stimulated bone, tissue, and nerve growth. The drugs were administered for just 24 hours, and the limb regrowth occurred over the next 18 months. The new limbs were not perfect, as the bone didn't extend into the toes, but the frogs could use them to swim. The research team hopes to use this technique on other animals, including mammals. Read about this experiment at Tufts University. -via Real Clear Science#frog #limbregeneration

Image Competition Winners Show the Diversity of Ecological ScienceThe image above by Kristen Brown shows a school of jackfish swimming in a spiral at the Great Barrier Reef. It was the overall winner in the 2021 photo competition from the scientific journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. The picture also won in the category Conservation Biology. The competition attracted entries from researchers all around the world eager to use their creativity to highlight their work and capture the diversity of the planet's flora and fauna. BMC Ecology and Evolution invited anyone affiliated with a research institution to submit to one of the following six categories: ‘Conservation Biology', 'Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Biodiversity', 'Behavioural Ecology', 'Human Evolution and Ecology', ‘Population Ecology' and 'Ecological Developmental Biology'.Our Senior Editorial Board Members lent their expertise to judge the entrants to the competition, selecting the overall winner, runner up and best image from each category. The board members considered the scientific story behind the photos submitted in addition to their artistic judgement (Fig. 1).#jackfish #fish #biology #photography #photocompetition

Newly Discovered 'Zombie Frog' in the Amazon is Surprisingly CuteResearchers from the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Germany discovered a new species of small frogs in the Amazon, and nicknamed it the "zombie frog."Why you ask? It's because the frogs spend most of their lives buried in the soil (like dead bodies) and their existence was only discovered when the biologists noticed their mating calls after heavy rains. "We herpetologists have had to dig the animals out of the ground with our bare hands - usually while we were completely soaked ourselves - in order to identify them," said team leader Raffael Ernst as reported in Phys.org, "This somewhat eerie and muddy scenario also inspired us to use the name Synapturanus zombie for one of the newly discovered species from the narrow-mouthed frog genus Synapturanus in the Amazon region."#frog #zombie #Amazon #NewSpecies #herpetology