AJC's Frogroom (UK) August 30th, 2010 09:26 AM: Wasps versus frogs

Besides their great species diversity, Malagasy anurans exhibit a wide array of behavioural patterns, including diverse reproductive behaviour. They display 11 different reproductive modes out of 29 recognized across the world. Being static, frog eggs have limited options for defense, compared with older and much more agile life stages like tadpoles or froglets. Eggs therefore suffer high levels of predation in the water. Most arboreal egg clutches are deposited on flimsy leaves or branches so that the majority of vertebrate predators are discouraged from reaching them, although they may be preyed upon by snakes and insects.

One such predation event was observed on egg clutches of Guibemantis, a genus of mantellid frogs from Madagascar. The clutch was preyed on by a... [Read More]

AJC's Frogroom (UK) August 27th, 2010 09:25 AM: Crispy dartfrog, anyone?

Seasonal rainfall affects tropical forest dynamics and behavior of species that are part of these ecosystems. The positive correlation between amphibian activity patterns and rainfall has been demonstrated repeatedly. Members of Dendrobatidae, a clade of Neotropical dart*poison frogs, are well known for their habitat use and behavior during the rainy season, but their behavior during the dry season has received little attention. We studied habitat use and diet of the dendrobatid frog Dendrobates tinctorius in French Guiana during the rainy and dry seasons. Unlike many other dendrobatid frogs, D. tinctorius does not maintain territories for the entire rainy season. Both sexes colonize recently formed canopy*gaps and stay in these... [Read More]

BBC News (London, UK) August 26th, 2010 11:25 AM: Frog skin could beat 'superbugs'

Frog skin may be an important source of new antibiotics to treat superbugs say researchers.

So far, more than 100 potential bacteria-killing substances have been identified from more than 6,000 species of frog.

The team at the United Arab Emirates University are now trying to tweak the substances to make them less toxic and suitable for use as human medicines.

The work was presented at the American Chemical Society meeting.

Drug resistant bacteria, such as MRSA, are becoming an increasing problem worldwide.

Yet there is a lack of new treatments in the pipeline.

Among the substances found by the researchers are a compound from a rare American species that shows promise for killing MRSA.

Another fights a drug-resistant infection seen in soldiers returning from Iraq.

The idea of using chemicals from the skin of frogs to kill bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing agents is not a new one.

But it is not a straightforward process to use these chemicals in humans because they are either destroyed in the... [Read More]

BBC News (London, UK) August 26th, 2010 04:52 AM: Scientists discover one of the world's tiniest frogs

Researchers on an expedition in Borneo have found a new and very tiny species of frog.

Male adults of the new species, named Microhyla nepenthicola, grow to approximately one centimetre in length.

The researchers first discovered the diminutive red and orange amphibian on an expedition to Kubah National Park in 2004.

They have now described the discovery in the journal Zootaxa.

The team found the frog when it emerged from a small pitcher plant, Nepenthes ampullaria, in which it lives.

The plant lives off decomposing organic matter that collects in its deep pitcher-shaped cavity. The little frog uses this as a habitat.

It lays its eggs there and when the tadpoles hatch, they live in the gathered organic goo until they mature.

Apart from its size, the amphibian has some unique features that set it apart from other species.

The scientists believe that its miniaturisation and "reduced webbing" may be the result of it having to navigate the slippery zone of the pitcher plants on... [Read More]

Livescience.com (Utah, USA) August 25th, 2010 10:19 AM: Mini Frog, Among Smallest in the World, Discovered

One of the tiniest frogs in the world, and the smallest ever seen outside of North and South America, has been discovered in the forests of the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.

The pea-sized amphibians (Microhyla nepenthicola) were found near a mountain in Kubah National Park.

"I saw some specimens in museum collections that are over 100 years old. Scientists presumably thought they were juveniles of other species, but it turns out they are adults of this newly discovered micro species," said Indraneil Das of the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, who, along with Alexander Haas of the Biozentrum Grindel und Zoologisches Museum of Hamburg, Germany, discovered the tiny creatures.

The mini frog was named after the plant on which it depends for survival, the Nepenthes ampullaria, one of many species of pitcher plants in Borneo. These plants have a pitcher-shaped, open cavity and grow in damp, shady forests. The frogs deposit their eggs on the sides of the pitcher, and tadpoles grow in the liquid accumulated inside the plant.

Adult... [Read More]

Livescience.com (Utah, USA) August 23rd, 2010 02:22 PM: Frog Egg Cells Key Ingredient in Robotic Nose

A chemical detector made from egg cells of the African clawed frog could give robots a new sense of smell.

About the size of a matchbook, the new device consists of two electrodes – strips of metal – and egg cells called oocytes (from the frog Xenopus laevis) covered with the equivalent of tiny insect "noses." When a chemical passes over the surface of the eggs, a specific electrical current is produced depending on the scent, creating a kind of fingerprint of the odorant.

This is not the first time frog eggs have been used to sniff out chemicals.

“People for many years, my lab especially, have been involved in work using Xenopus oocytes to express olfactory receptors,” said Laurence Zwiebel, professor at Vanderbilt University who was not involved in the study.

“It’s a very convenient system; it’s essentially a little factory cell that you can harvest very easily and make it work for you,” Zwiebel told TechNewsDaily.

However, the new study marks the first time frog eggs have... [Read More]

National Geographic News (Washington DC, USA) August 20th, 2010 03:41 PM: "Snot Otter" Sperm to Save Giant Salamander?

Cryopreservation may be the last chance for the hellbender, aka the snot otter.

It may be a shot in the dark, but freezing sperm is one of the last chances to save the hellbender, North America's biggest salamander, conservationists say.

Hellbenders—also known as snot otters and devil dogs—have dwindled throughout their range, which once encompassed streams from northeastern Arkansas to New York.

The 2.5-foot-long (0.7-meter-long) amphibians have declined by 80 to 90 percent in most of their traditional watersheds in recent decades, and now haunt only isolated pockets of southern Appalachia (see map), said Dale McGinnity, curator of reptiles at Nashville Zoo.

All of the states in the hellbender's range have listed the animal as a "species of special concern," and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing whether to add the hellbender to the federal endangered species list, McGinnity said.

The reasons for their decline is unknown, but it's likely environmental... [Read More]

Mongabay News (California, USA) August 17th, 2010 02:26 PM: Golden toad saved from brink of extinction

One hundred Kihansi Spray Toads have been flown to their native Tanzania after a close brush with extinction, reports the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

The species, which last year was declared extinct in the wild by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was rehabilitated in captivity at the Bronx Zoo and the Toledo Zoo. Since 2004, when the toad was last seen in the wild, the captive population has climbed from a few hundred to nearly 7,000. For now, the toads—which unusually bear live young rather than laying eggs—reside in a new propagation center in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, but plans are now in the works to eventually reintroduce the amphibian into its native habitat: the Kihansi Gorge in the Southern Udzungwa Mountains of South Central Tanzania, a region that possess the greatest biodiversity in all of Tanzania.

Full Article

EDGE Blog (Zoological Society of London, UK) August 12th, 2010 11:01 AM: The hunt for the world’s lost amphibians is on!

Sometimes finding an amphibian can be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.* As much as you don’t think it’s there, there’s always that nagging feeling that if you just looked a little harder you might just find it.* Amphibians are, after all, often shy, nocturnal creatures that are highly adept at playing [...]
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AJC's Frogroom (UK) August 10th, 2010 10:05 AM: One for the axolotl fans

Species with highly restricted distributions are vulnerable to extinction, and modification of natural habitats within their small ranges is a primary threat to their persistence. Expansion of urban development significantly impacts natural habitats and, therefore, threatens local diversity. The Mexican axolotl, Ambystoma mexicanum, is a strictly aquatic species that persists currently in two highly threatened and isolated populations. The current habitat remaining for these species are remnants of a historically extensive lacustrine system that occupied the entire Valley of Mexico, but has been destroyed by the growth of Mexico City. Unexpectedly, a third viable population of axolotls has been found in Chapultepec Park, a public recreational area in the heart of Mexico City.

Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial DNA sequences... [Read More]

BBC News (London, UK) August 8th, 2010 08:03 PM: Hunt for 'extinct' frogs begins

A frog hunt like no other is about to begin, as conservationists scour the world for species thought to be extinct but which may just be hanging on.

Over the next two months, missions will begin in 14 countries searching for species such as the golden toad, the hula painted frog and the scarlet frog.

Amphibians are the most threatened animals on the planet, with one third of species at risk of extinction.

Many have been eliminated by a fungal disease carried in water.

The scientist leading the project, Robin Moore, said he believes some of the 100 amphibians targeted in the survey will turn up.

"A couple of years ago when I was in Ecuador with a team of local scientists, we went in search of a species that hadn't been seen in 12 years," he told BBC News.

"We weren't very hopeful that we'd find it, but after a day of searching we uncovered a rock and found one of these little green frogs.

"Similar stories have started popping up of people finding frogs that we thought had gone; so it gives me hope that there are a... [Read More]