Search Results for: Amphibians
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- Animals
Pheromone fingers may help poison frogs mate
Specialized glands in the fingertips of some males may produce seductive chemical signals.
By Jake Buehler -
Of frogs and the people who love them
Editor in chief Nancy Shute discusses frogs and chytrid fungus, trilobite fossils and a dinosaur named after the Norse god of mischief.
By Nancy Shute - Life
This is the first egg-laying amphibian found to feed its babies ‘milk’
Similar to mammals, these ringed caecilians make a nutrient-rich milk-like fluid to feed their mewling hatchlings up to six times a day.
By Jake Buehler - Animals
Tiny saunas help frogs fight off chytrid fungus
Balmy shelters could bolster resistance to the deadly fungus in amphibian populations, but experts caution they won’t work for all susceptible species.
By Skyler Ware - Animals
American bullfrogs may be threatening a rare frog species in Brazil
A search for environmental DNA from critically endangered Pithecopus rusticus frogs turned up DNA from invasive American bullfrogs instead.
- Animals
Nasty-tasting cane toads teach crocodiles a lifesaving lesson
After tasting nausea-inducing toad butts, crocodiles in Australia learned to avoid the poisonous live version. Crocodile deaths dropped by 95 percent.
- Animals
The Brazilian flea toad may be the world’s smallest vertebrate
Brazilian flea toads are neither a flea nor a toad, but they are almost flea-sized. The frogs are small enough to fit on a pinkie fingernail.
- Animals
A global report finds amphibians are still in peril. But it’s not all bad news
A survey of about 8,000 amphibian species provides the latest update on extinction risk trends stretching back to 1980.
By Anna Gibbs - Animals
A frog’s story of surviving a fungal pandemic offers hope for other species
Evolving immunity to the Bd fungus and a reintroduction project saved a California frog. The key to rescuing other species might be in the frog’s genes.
- Life
Some picky Australian mosquitoes may target frog nostrils for blood
The insects seem to sip from nowhere else on frogs’ bodies. Thinner skin or denser blood vessels near the nostrils might explain why.
By Jake Buehler - Life
Here’s how poison dart frogs safely hoard toxins in their skin
A protein found in frog bodies may help the amphibians collect and transport toxins from their food to their skin for chemical defense.
- Paleontology
The oldest known fossilized skin shows how life adapted to land
The nearly 290 million-year-old cast belonged to a species of amniotes, four-legged vertebrates that today comprises all reptiles, birds and mammals.
By Nikk Ogasa