frogs

A study published in the journal Nature found that the status of amphibians globally is "deteriorating rapidly," earning them the unenviable title of being the planet's most threatened class of vertebrates. Here, an endangered Agalychnis annae, commonly known as a Blue-Sided Leaf Frog, is seen at National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica, INBio, in Heredia, Costa Rica.

Scientists looked at nearly every known amphibian type. They're not doing great

4:36pm October 04, 2023

by Nathan Rott

A new global assessment of the world's amphibians finds that more than 2 of every 5 known species is at risk of extinction. Habitat loss, disease and climate change are the main drivers.

A group of glassfrogs sleeping together upside down on a leaf, showing their camouflage.

Science

The astonishing vanishing act of the glassfrog, revealed

12:57pm December 26, 2022

by Ari Daniel

A kind of transparent frog achieves near invisibility by hiding its red blood cells during the day, scientists found. "I had never seen anything like that," researcher Carlos Taboada says.

A Froggyland diorama shows a teacher trying to control a class in which students are hitting each other with rulers, arriving late to class and balancing pencils on their noses. Each diorama displays anthropomorphized frogs in human scenes of the early 2

World News

Welcome To Froggyland, The Croatian Taxidermy Museum That May Soon Come To The U.S.

8:00pm June 10, 2021

by Rob Schmitz

The museum features the work of a Hungarian taxidermist who created anthropomorphized exhibits. It had 50,000 visitors in 2019, but numbers fell during the pandemic and the owner now plans to sell.

Queue Listen Now

North Carolina Goes To The Frogs As Flooding, Breeding Align

1:08pm October 09, 2018

by Associated Press

In the wake of Hurricane Florence, the North Carolina coast has been plagued with a tide of frogs and toads, but the storm's record-setting floods aren't entirely to blame.

The frog Hyla sanchiangensis from eastern China is a descendant of one of three lineages that made it through Earth's last mass extinction 66 million years ago to flourish worldwide today.

Science

How Frogs Benefited From The Dinosaurs' Extinction

6:14pm July 03, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

Frogs are "master survivors," able to take advantage of the ecological vacuum left behind by extinct animals. Scientists say 9 in 10 frog species descended from three surviving frog lineages.

The South American polka dot tree frog was recently found to glow fluorescent under ultraviolet light.

Groovy: Scientists Say They've Found The First Fluorescent Frog

6:40pm March 16, 2017

by Merrit Kennedy

The South American polka dot tree frog initially appears unremarkable. But when researchers in Argentina shone an ultraviolet light on the frog, it glowed.

A leopard frog catches a cricket using its sticky tongue.

Science

To Catch Prey, Frogs Turn to Sticky Spit

8:01pm January 31, 2017

by Madeline K. Sofia

Frogs are unmatched in their speed and ability to catch prey. It's all about their super-soft tongue and specialized saliva, say researchers, who got saliva to test by scraping frogs' tongues.

The skin of the golden poison dart frog, Phyllobates terribilis, secretes a deadly poison that might lead to a better understanding of how to treat malfunctions of the human nervous system.

Chemists Re-Create Deadly Frog Poison In The Lab

6:28pm November 17, 2016

by Rae Ellen Bichell

The toxin comes from tiny frogs in Colombia — the ones that pack a punch on the tip of poison darts. In the past, research on toxins like this has led to some pretty amazing drug discoveries.

Queue Listen Now

A mountain yellow-legged frog returns to the wild in the Desolation Wilderness, south of Lake Tahoe in California.

In The Battle To Save Frogs, Scientists Fight Fungus With Fungus

6:26am September 10, 2016

by Lauren Sommer

A deadly fungus is devastating frog populations around the world. In California, scientists are racing to find a way to immunize one species, mountain yellow-legged frogs, against the fungus.

Scientists in California are turning to big data to help save the red-legged frog, which is listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

Using Algorithms To Catch The Sounds Of Endangered Frogs

5:16pm May 29, 2016

by Sam Harnett

Scientists are turning to big data to try to save California's state amphibian. They're using software to comb through hours of recordings to find the red-legged frogs that remain.