Frogs are amazing

[Michaelangelica]

(CBS) Amphibians like the red-legged frog are Earth's ultimate tough guy. For millions of years they've endured - even through previous mass extinctions. But now scientists say their numbers are declining at a rate that sends a deafening warning about human impact on climate change and the environment, CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports.

 

"These guys are survivors, yet here they are in our time, when more than 40 percent of amphibians around the world are threatened," said Vance Vrendenburg, associate professor at San Francisco University.

 

Climate change and disease are seen as the most serious threats to amphibians like the harlequin frog from Equador - specifically, a fungus known as chytridiomycosis.

"The perfect storm is happening," Vrendenburg said. "All these different factors are leading to their decline, and it's really, really serious. We've been finding dead frogs by the hundreds and thousands."

"Perfect Storm" Killing Earth's Frogs, Many Factors Threaten Several Species Of Usually Resilient Amphibians - CBS News

Video at this site

[Michaelangelica]

Frogs | Pesticides | Chytrid Fungus | Global Warming

Atrazine, perhaps the most commonly used herbicide on the planet (33 million kg are applied each year in the US alone), can cause hermaphroditism in frogs (males grow female sex organs) at ecologically relevant doses, and can reduce survivorship in salamanders. Roundup (also sold as Touchdown Total) is lethal to gray treefrog and leopard frog tadpoles, and most likely a host of other as yet untested frog species. Roundup is the 2nd most commonly applied herbicide in the USA;

Poster for sale

 

 

The text at the top of the poster reads as follows:

"Amphibian populations have been declining worldwide at unprecedented rates, and nearly one-third of the world’s 6,316 amphibian species are threatened with extinction. At least 100 species have completely disappeared since 1980, many from seemingly pristine wilderness areas such as national parks and preserves. Factors responsible for amphibian declines and disappearances include pollutants, infectious diseases, habitat loss, invasive species, climate change, and over-harvesting for the pet and food trades. Australia is home to 216 frog species, some of which are pictured below. The future of these and many other species is largely dependent on us. To learn more about frogs, and to find out ways to help, please visit www.savethefrogs.com." All posters are printed on recycled paper.

 

Frogs | Pesticides | Chytrid Fungus | Global Warming

 

Also good link

Poison Dart Frogs | Red Eye Treefrog

[Michaelangelica]

Frogs are Amazing

About 18 wonderful photos of frogs ( and toads they don't seem to see the difference)

Unfortunately the pictures have nothing to do with the mindless article

Amazing nature - All about nature, travel and vacation: Most Poisonous Animal

 

[Michaelangelica]

. . .do survive.

 

Robyn Williams: Last time we talked it was about a means of treating frogs with this chytrid fungus, which is one of the main culprits killing them, and it was experimental. How has it gone?

 

Phil Bishop: It's gone really well. What we've been finding now is that we can treat the frog...so we can infect the frogs and (and these are Archey's frogs as well)...we can infect them with the chytrid disease, and we can treat them and cure them with our chloramphenicol. But what's even more interesting is that once we've cured a frog we can then infect it again and it is able to cure itself without being treated.

 

Robyn Williams: How's that?

 

Phil Bishop: It must be some kind of acquired immunity that when the frogs actually survive a chytrid infection that then they have an immunity. So it doesn't stop them becoming infected but it stops the infection from turning into a disease and killing them.

 

Robyn Williams: And of course the big difficulty is getting the chloramphenicol actually to the frogs which are out there in the wild, and they're the ones you want to save, not necessarily just the ones in your laboratory.

 

Phil Bishop: That's right, and that's another problem. There's actually an Australian student doing her PhD at the moment who is looking at just a very small increase in the salinity of the water will actually give the frogs some resistance to the chytrid, but of course that's not going to help us with terrestrial frogs. So we can't really treat the frogs in the wild yet, and we're still looking at some method of trying to do that.

 

Robyn Williams: Are you doing various experiments of how to distribute the chloramphenicol and ways in which to spread it about?

. . . .

Lots more at

Science Show - 30August2008 - Attacking chytrid, the killer frog fungus

--------------------------------------

New Zealand Frog Week

28 Sept - 4 October 2008

Frog Week

[Turtle]

I spotted a little froggy hunting the grass next to my compost pile, and I detained it briefly for questioning. No animal was harmed in the making of this interrogation video. Anyone know what species this is ,or if it's an alien to the Pacific Northwest US or not? :bouquet:

 

(processing error; BRB)

 

Here we go thens: ;)

 

YouTube - froggy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as2XyFMm8ys

[Michaelangelica]

LOL( many times) I liked. No rep allowed sorry

[freeztar]

Anyone know what species this is ,or if it's an alien to the Pacific Northwest US or not? :)

 

It looks to be a Pacific Tree Frog. They are native and apparently very common.

[Michaelangelica]

SYDNEY, Australia — A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of Australia's tropical north, researchers said Thursday.

 

The 1.5 inch-long Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state.

 

But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville conducting research on another frog species in Queensland stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek, said professor Ross Alford, head of a research team on threatened frogs at the university.

 

• Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Natural Science Center.

FOXNews.com - 'Extinct' Frog Found Alive and Well in Australia - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

[Flying Binghi]

Got a fair plague of frogs around my farm at the moment (SE-QLD) Seems every thing I pick up around the padock has a frog under it. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the local crows becoming adept at eating cane toads? Toad carcases every-where.

[Michaelangelica]

Got a fair plague of frogs around my farm at the moment (SE-QLD) Seems every thing I pick up around the padock has a frog under it. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the local crows becoming adept at eating cane toads? Toad carcases every-where.

 

I heard a few interesting frog croaks yesterday but no sightings.

 

The area seems devoid of frogs

Why?

[Flying Binghi]

I heard a few interesting frog croaks yesterday but no sightings.

 

The area seems devoid of frogs

Why?

 

If your in south Oz it may still be a bit cool for them.

[Michaelangelica]

Bacteria could stop frog killer

 

Bacteria could stop frog killer

By Richard Black

Environment correspondent, BBC News website

 

Forrest Brem / Roberto Brenes

 

The disease that is devastating amphibian populations around the world could be tackled using “friendly” bacteria, research suggests.

 

Scientists have found that certain types of bacteria which live naturally on amphibians produce chemicals that attack the disease-causing fungus.

 

Recent results indicate the bacteria help frogs survive fungal infection.

 

The chytrid fungus is a major reason for the global decline which sees one third of amphibians facing extinction.

 

But the latest findings, reported at the American Society for Microbiology meeting in Boston, may give conservationists a new way to tackle the scourge. .

. ; .

“Interestingly, some of the probiotic agricultural products that you can buy from hardware stores contain pretty similar bacteria to what we’re using,” he said.BBC

 

“Using them doesn’t seem too controversial in an agricultural setting, although of course people get a lot more cautious when you’re talking about national parks and so on.

 

“In something like Rana muscosa where the frogs pretty much stay put in ponds all year you might be able to add bacteria to soil or ponds and stay in front of the infection wave. It’s harder to see how it would work in a tropical rainforest.”

Scattering bacteria in ponds and soil might seem like a risky strategy.

Bacteria could stop frog killer Health News For All

[Michaelangelica]

 

Common Insecticide Can Decimate Tadpole Populations

 

 

ScienceDaily (Sep. 29, 2008) — The latest findings of a University of Pittsburgh-based project to determine the environmental impact of routine pesticide use suggests that malathion—the most popular insecticide in the United States—can decimate tadpole populations by altering their food chain, according to research published in the Oct. 1 edition of Ecological Applications.

 

 

 

 

Gradual amounts of malathion that were too small to directly kill developing leopard frog tadpoles instead sparked a biological chain of events that deprived them of their primary food source. As a result, nearly half the tadpoles in the experiment did not reach maturity and would have died in nature.

Common Insecticide Can Decimate Tadpole Populations

Trade and Other Names: Malathion is also known as carbophos, maldison and mercaptothion. Trade names for products containing malathion include Celthion, Cythion, Dielathion, El 4049, Emmaton, Exathios, Fyfanon and Hilthion, Karbofos and Maltox.

EXTOXNET PIP - MALATHION

[Flying Binghi]

Global warming suites Frogs :hihi:

[freeztar]

Global warming suites Frogs :)

 

Can you provide scientific evidence for this claim FB?

[Flying Binghi]

Can you provide scientific evidence for this claim FB?

 

T'was more a personal observation freeztar.

 

I use steel pipe fence strainer posts around my little farm. Practicly every post I look into has several frogs inside - these posts get hot in the mid-day sun, tho, them frogs are happy to sit in there chirping away :phones:

[Michaelangelica]

Promiscuous frogs spread eggs widely

Friday, 07 November 2008

Monash University

 

A ground breaking new study into the mating and nesting practices of a common Australian frog has found they partner up to eight males sequentially -- the highest recorded of any vertebrate.

 

Dr Phillip Byrne from Monash University's School of Biological Sciences has researched the Bibron's toadlet (Pseudophryne bibronii) for six years and in this latest field trip, discovered a new behaviour undetected in a frog species until now.

 

"Our study revealed that females made the active decision to distribute their eggs between the nests of up to eight different males," Dr Byrne said.

 

Bibron's toadlet (Pseudophryne bibronii)