News + Videos: Frogs

[The Peregrine Chick]

for Earth Day ...

Romeo meets Juliet and save their species
The Independent / 10 April 2019



Romeo, meet Juliet – now go save your species

At first, the story of Romeo, the last Sehuencas water frog, seemed like an ecological tragedy. Here was an animal in an aquarium destined to live as a bachelor, passing with his kind into extinction.

But then there was Juliet.

After biologists found her leaping from a waterfall at the end of a Bolivian stream, they took her back to Romeo’s home at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d’Orbigny in Bolivia to see if they’d hit it off.

These lovers’ stars do not appear to be crossed. Their first meeting was a success and if their mating is productive, it could mean restored hope for their species, and for the conservation of other amphibians threatened by habitat destruction, exotic species, pollution, climate change and chytrid fungus (recently declared far worse than thought).

“This first date is a significant chapter in what we hope will be a long story with a happy future for the Sehuencas water frog,” says Robin Moore, communications director at Global Wildlife Conservation and a photographer who has been following Romeo and other threatened frogs.

Last month, Romeo and Juliet met for the first time after both were cleared of a deadly fungal disease that one might have passed to the other.

At their first meeting, on 1 March, the two spent a few minutes making introductions in a small tank in the museum. Their date was so successful that the frogs have been living together in Romeo’s aquarium ever since.

In Romeo’s habitat, they were more comfortable. The moment Juliet moved there, Romeo started singing. This surprised researchers, who had worried that Romeo had stopped making his mating calls because he was too old to reproduce. But his croaking meant he was ready to breed.

To mate, frogs embrace in a position called amplexus: the male frog clings to the female until he can fertilise her eggs as she lays them. During this time, the male often won’t eat – for weeks or even months – until the deed is done.

Romeo is giving up his worm meals for Juliet and trying his best to perfect amplexus. But after a decade of solitude, “he needs more practice”, says Teresa Camacho Badani, a herpetologist at the museum who found Juliet.

Romeo embraced Juliet briefly, making a new vocalisation his handlers had not previously heard, and wiggling his back toes. These “jazz hands” or “twinkle toes”, as researchers are calling them, have never been observed in water frogs. They may be a signal to impress mates or defend against competition.

By observing and trying to breed four other Sehuencas water frogs the team captured (two males and two females), they hope to learn if these behaviours are unique to Romeo and Juliet or common to the species.

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/science-roundup-news-frogs-whales-mars-moons-genes-lizards-a8862976.html

[The Peregrine Chick]

World’s smallest frog discovered, is smaller than a dime
Postmedia News  Jan 12, 2012 – 8:40 AM ET
By Natalie Stechyson





Researchers say they have discovered the world’s smallest frog species.

The Paedophryne amauensis is only 7.7 millimetres in length on average and may be the world’s smallest vertebrate, researchers said in a PLoS One journal article published Wednesday.

The frog fits easily on a dime, with room to spare.

The species was discovered in New Guinea, where the same U.S. researchers also found another frog species of only slightly larger size — the Paedophryne swiftorum. Both were found living in leaf litter on the jungle floor.

“This discovery highlights intriguing ecological similarities among the numerous independent origins of diminutive anurans [frogs], suggesting that minute frogs are not mere oddities, but represent a previously unrecognized ecological guild,” the researchers said in the article.

“Such discoveries are increasingly critical in this time of global amphibian declines and extinctions.”

There are at least 11 types of miniature terrestrial frogs, the researchers said, and most live in wet forest leaf litter, likely because they’re more sensitive to moisture loss.

The smallest known extant vertebrate is a fish, the Paedocypris progenetica, which averages between 7.9 millimetres and 10.3 millimetres. The largest is the blue whale, whose average adult size is 25.8 metres.

Because both species are aquatic, biologists have speculated that water may play a role in facilitating the evolution of both large and small size animals, the researchers said.

The ecological similarities between the new frog species suggests the frogs aren’t just evolutionary outliers, the researchers said.

The researchers came from three different U.S. universities: Louisiana State University, Bishop Museum in Hawaii, and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.


Original article & photo: World's smallest frog discovered, is smaller than a dime