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Poinsettia frogs and a Merry 2023 Christmas

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I stumbled across this image in a December 20, 2023 article by Dorothy Woodend for The Tyee where she is the culture editor,

Instead of new material goods this holiday season, I’m searching for something more elusive and ultimately sustaining. And it may help us grow our appreciation for the natural world and its mysteries. Illustrations for The Tyee by Dorothy Woodend.

À propos given the name for this blog and the time of year. Thank you, Ms. Woodend!

I try not to do too many of these stories since the focus for this blog is new and emerging science and technology but I can’t resist including these frog stories (and one dog story). Plus, there may be some tap dancing.

A new (!) fanged frog in Indonesia

This is not the tiny Indonesian fanged frog but it does show you what a fanged frog looks like, from the December 21, 2023 “What Are Fanged Frogs?” posting on the Vajiram and Ravi IAS Study Center website,

Not an Indonesian fanged frog. h/t Vajiram and Ravi IAS Study Center [downloaded from https://vajiramias.com/current-affairs/what-are-fanged-frogs/658416a9f0e178517404afda/]

If you don’t have much time and are interested in the latest fanged frog, check out the December 21, 2023 “What Are Fanged Frogs?” posting as they have relevant information in bullet point form.

On to the specifics about the ‘new’ fanged frog from a December 21, 2023 news item on ScienceDaily,

In general, frogs’ teeth aren’t anything to write home about — they look like pointy little pinpricks lining the upper jaw. But one group of stream-dwelling frogs in Southeast Asia has a strange adaptation: two bony “fangs” jutting out of their lower jawbone. They use these fangs to battle with each other over territory and mates, and sometimes even to hunt tough-shelled prey like giant centipedes and crabs. In a new study, published in the journal PLOS [Public Library of Science] ONE, researchers have described a new species of fanged frog: the smallest one ever discovered.

“This new species is tiny compared to other fanged frogs on the island where it was found, about the size of a quarter,” says Jeff Frederick, a postdoctoral researcher at the Field Museum in Chicago and the study’s lead author, who conducted the research as a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley.

…

A December 20, 2023 Field Museum news release (also on EurrekAlert), which originated the news item, adds more detail,

“Many frogs in this genus are giant, weighing up to two pounds. At the large end, this new species weighs about the same as a dime.”

In collaboration with the Bogor Zoology Museum, a team from the McGuire Lab at Berkeley   found the frogs on Sulawesi, a rugged, mountainous island that makes up part of Indonesia. “It’s a giant island with a vast network of mountains, volcanoes, lowland rainforest, and cloud forests up in the mountains. The presence of all these different habitats mean that the magnitude of biodiversity across many plants and animals we find there is unreal – rivaling places like the Amazon,” says Frederick.

While trekking through the jungle, members of the joint US-Indonesia amphibian and reptile research team noticed something unexpected on the leaves of tree saplings and moss-covered boulders: nests of frog eggs.

Frogs are amphibians, and they lay eggs that are encapsulated by jelly, rather than a hard, protective shell. To keep their eggs from drying out, most amphibians lay their eggs in water. To the research team’s surprise, they kept spotting the terrestrial egg masses on leaves and mossy boulders several feet above the ground. Shortly after, they began to see the small, brown frogs themselves.

“Normally when we’re looking for frogs, we’re scanning the margins of stream banks or wading through streams to spot them directly in the water,” Frederick says. “After repeatedly monitoring the nests though, the team started to find attending frogs sitting on leaves hugging their little nests.” This close contact with their eggs allows the frog parents to coat the eggs with compounds that keep them moist and free from bacterial and fungal contamination.

Closer examination of the amphibian parents revealed not only that they were tiny members of the fanged frog family, complete with barely-visible fangs, but that the frogs caring for the clutches of eggs were all male. “Male egg guarding behavior isn’t totally unknown across all frogs, but it’s rather uncommon,” says Frederick.

Frederick and his colleagues hypothesize that the frogs’ unusual reproductive behaviors might also relate to their smaller-than-usual fangs. Some of the frogs’ relatives have bigger fangs, which help them ward off competition for spots along the river to lay their eggs in the water. Since these frogs evolved a way to lay their eggs away from the water, they may have lost the need for such big imposing fangs. (The scientific name for the new species is Limnonectes phyllofolia; phyllofolia means “leaf-nester.”)

“It’s fascinating that on every subsequent expedition to Sulawesi, we’re still discovering new and diverse reproductive modes,” says Frederick. “Our findings also underscore the importance of conserving these very special tropical habitats. Most of the animals that live in places like Sulawesi are quite unique, and habitat destruction is an ever-looming conservation issue for preserving the hyper-diversity of species we find there. Learning about animals like these frogs that are found nowhere else on Earth helps make the case for protecting these valuable ecosystems.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A new species of terrestrially-nesting fanged frog (Anura: Dicroglossidae) from Sulawesi Island, Indonesia by Jeffrey H. Frederick, Djoko T. Iskanda, Awal Riyanto, Amir Hamidy, Sean B. Reilly, Alexander L. Stubbs, Luke M. Bloch, Bryan Bach, Jimmy A. McGuire. PLOS ONE 18(12): e0292598 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292598 Published: December 20, 2023

This paper is open access and online only.

Fatal attraction to … frog noses?

Bob Yirka in a November 28, 2023 article published on phys.org describes research into some unusual mosquito behaviour, Note: Links have been removed,

A pair of environmental and life scientists, one with the University of Newcastle, in Australia, the other the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, has found that one species of mosquito native to Australia targets only the noses of frogs for feeding. In their paper published in the journal Ethology, John Gould and Jose Valdez describe their three-year study of frogs and Mimomyia elegans, a species of mosquito native to Australia

As part of their study of frogs living in a pond on Kooragang Island, the pair took a lot of photographs of the amphibians in their native environment. It was upon returning to their lab and laying out the photographs that they noticed something unique—any mosquito feeding on a frog’s blood was always atop its nose. This spot, they noted, seemed precarious, as mosquitos are part of the frog diet.

A mosquito perches on the nose of a green and yellow frog perched on a branch.
A species of Australian mosquito, Mimomyia elegans, appears to have a predilection for the nostrils of tree frogs, according to new observations published in the journal Ethology. (John Gould) [downloaded from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/mosquitoes-on-frog-noses-1.7058168]

Sheena Goodyear posted a December 13, 2023 article containing an embedded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) As It Happens radio programme audio file of an interview with researcher John Gould, Note: A link has been removed,

…

So why risk landing on the nose of something that wants to eat you, when there are so many other targets walking around full of delicious blood?

“In all of the occasions that we observed, it seems as if the frog didn’t realize that it had a mosquito on top of it…. They were actually quite happy, just sitting idly, while these mosquitoes were feeding on them,” Gould said.

“So it might be that the area between the eyes is a bit of a blind spot for the frogs.”

It’s also something of a sneak attack by the mosquitoes.

“Some of the mosquitoes first initially landed on the backs of the frogs,” Gould said. “They might avoid being eaten by the frogs by landing away from the head and then walking up to the nostrils to feed.

It’s a plausible theory, says amphibian expert Lea Randall, a Calgary Zoo and Wilder Institute ecologist who wasn’t involved in the research. 

“Frogs have amazing vision, and any mosquito that approached from the front would likely end up as a tasty snack for a frog,” she said.

“Landing on the back and making your way undetected to the nostrils is a good strategy.”

And the reward may just be worth the risk. 

“I could also see the nostrils as being a good place to feed as the skin is very thin and highly vascularized, and thus provides a ready source of blood for a hungry mosquito,” Randall said.

…

Gould admits his friends and loved ones have likely grown weary of hearing him “talking about frogs and nostrils.” But for him, it’s more than a highly specific scientific obsession; it’s about protecting frogs.

His earlier research has suggested that mosquitoes may be a vector for transmitting amphibian chytrid fungus, which is responsible for declines in frog populations worldwide. 

That’s why he had been amassing photos of frogs and mosquitoes in the first place.

“Now that we know where the mosquito is more likely to land, it might give us a better impression about how the infection spreads along the skin of the frog,” he said.

…

But more work needs to be done. His frog nostril research, while it encompasses three years’ of fieldwork, is a natural history observation, not a laboratory study with controlled variables.

“It would be quite interesting to know whether this particular type of mosquito is transferring the chytrid fungus, and also how the fungus spreads once the mosquito has landed,” Gould said.

…

A man in a bright yellow jacket and a light strapped to his forehead poses outside at night with a tiny frog perched on his hand.
Gould describes himself as a ‘vampire scientist’ who stays up all night studying nocturnal tree frogs in Australia. ‘They’re so soft and timid a lot of the times,’ he said. ‘They’re quite a special little, little animal.’ (Submitted by John Gould)

Vampire scientist, eh? You can find the embedded 6 mins. 28 secs. audio file in the December 13, 2023 article on the CBC website.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the research paper,

A little on the nose: A mosquito targets the nostrils of tree frogs for a blood meal by John Gould, Jose W. Valdez. Ethology DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/eth.13424 First published: 21 November 2023

This paper is open access.

Gifted dogs

Caption: Shira, 6 -year-old, female, Border Collie mix, that was rescued at a young age. She lives in New Jersey, and knows the names of 125 toys. Credit Photo: Tres Hanley-Millman

A December 14, 2023 news item on phys.org describes some intriguing research from Hungary,

All dog owners think that their pups are special. Science now has documented that some rare dogs are even more special. They have a talent for learning hundreds of names of dog toys. Due to the extreme rarity of this phenomenon, until recently, very little was known about these dogs, as most of the studies that documented this ability included only a small sample of one or two dogs.

A December 18,2023 Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) press release (also on EurekAlert but published December 14, 2023), which originated the news item, delves further into the research,

In a previous study, the scientists found that only very few dogs could learn the names of object, mostly dog toys. The researchers wanted to understand this phenomenon better and, so they needed to find more dogs with this ability. But finding dogs with this rare talent was a challenge! For five years, the researchers tirelessly searched across the world for these unique Gifted Word Learner (GWL) dogs. As part of this search, in 2020, they launched a social media campaign and broadcasted their experiments with GWL dogs, in the hope of finding more GWL dogs.

“This was a citizen science project” explains Dr. Claudia Fugazza, team leader. “When a dog owner told us they thought their dog knew toy names, we gave them instructions on how to self-test their dog and asked them to send us the video of the test”. The researchers then held an online meeting with the owners to test the dog’s vocabulary under controlled conditions and, if the dog showed he knew the names of his toys, the researchers asked the owners to fill out a questionnaire. “In the questionnaire, we asked the owners about their dog’s life experience, their own experience in raising and training dogs, and about the process by which the dog came to learn the names of his/her toys” explains Dr. Andrea Sommese, co-author.

VIDEO ABSTRACT ABOUT THE RESEARCH

The researchers found 41 dogs from 9 different countries: the US, the UK, Brazil, Canada, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Portugal and Hungary. Most of the previous studies on this topic included Border collies. So, while object label learning is very rare even in Border collies, it was not surprising that many of the dogs participating in the current study (56%) belonged to this breed. However, the study documented the ability to learn toy names in a few dogs from non-working breeds, such as two Pomeranians, one Pekingese, one Shih Tzu, a Corgi, a Poodle, and a few mixed breeds.

“Surprisingly, most owners reported that they did not intentionally teach their dogs toy names, but rather that the dogs just seemed to spontaneously pick up the toy names during unstructured play sessions,” says Shany Dror, lead researcher. In addition, the vast majority of owners participating in the study had no professional background in dog training and the researchers found no correlations between the owners’ level of experience in handling and training dogs, and the dogs’ ability to select the correct toys when hearing its names.

“In our previous studies we have shown that GWL dogs learn new object names very fast” explains Dror. “So, it is not surprising that when we conducted the test with the dogs, the average number of toys known by the dogs was 29, but when we published the results, more than 50% of the owners reported that their dogs had already acquired a vocabulary of over 100 toy names”.

“Because GWL dogs are so rare, until now there were only anecdotes about their background” explains Prof. Adam Miklósi, Head of the Ethology Department at ELTE and co-author. “The rare ability to learn object names is the first documented case of talent in a non-human species. The relatively large sample of dogs documented in this study, helps us to identify the common characteristics that are shared among these dogs, and brings us one step closer in the quest of understanding their unique ability”.

This research is part of the Genius Dog Challenge research project which aims to understand the unique talent that Gifted Word Learner dogs have. The researchers encourage dog owners who believe their dogs know multiple toy names, to contact them via the Genius Dog Challenge website.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the research paper,

A citizen science model turns anecdotes into evidence by revealing similar characteristics among Gifted Word Learner dogs by Shany Dror, Ádám Miklósi, Andrea Sommese & Claudia Fugazza. Scientific Reports volume 13, Article number: 21747 (2023) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-47864-5 Published: 14 December 2023

This paper is open access.

The End with an origin story NORAD’s Santa Tracker and some tap dancing

At the height of Cold War tensions between the US and Russia, the red phone (to be used only by the US president or a four star genera) rang at the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Before the conversation ended, the colonel in charge had driven a child to tears and put in motion the start of a beloved Christmas tradition.

There’s a short version and a long version and if you want all the details read both,

As for the tap dancing, I have three links:

  1. “Irish Dancers Face Off Against American Tap Dancers To Deliver EPIC Performance!” is an embedded 8 mins. dance off video (scroll down past a few paragraphs) in Erin Perri’s September 1, 2017 posting for themix.net. And, if you scroll further down to the bottom of Perri’s post, you’ll see an embedded video of Sammy Davis Jr.

…

In the video …, along with his dad and uncle, Sammy performs at an unbelievable pace. In the last 30 seconds of this routine, Sammy demonstrates more talent than other dancers are able to cram into a lifelong career! You can see these three were breakdancing long before it became a thing in the 1980s and they did it wearing tap shoes!

..

2. “Legendary Nicholas Brothers Dance Routine Was Unrehearsed and Filmed in One Take” embedded at the end of Emma Taggart’s October 4, 2019 posting on mymodernmet.com

3. Finally, there’s “Jill Biden releases extravagant dance video to celebrate Christmas at the White House” with a video file embedded (wait for it to finish loading and scroll down a few paragraphs) in Kate Fowler’s December 15, (?) 2023 article for MSN. It’s a little jazz, a little tap, and a little Christmas joy.

Joyeux Noël!

Frog pants?

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How would you go about tracking these frogs?

Six images of tiny frogs wearing little plastic trackers attached to wire harnesses on their back legs.
Researchers have fitted tiny trackable radio-pants to three species of South American frogs to test their ability to navigate through the rainforest. (Submitted by Andrius Pašukonis)

You can see how tiny they are when you compare one of the frogs to a leaf visible in one of the images (top left or top right).

The answer to the question, as you may have guessed, are frog pants (or G-strings).

Sheena Goodyear’s June 13, 2023 article for the CBC’s (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) As It Happens radio show explores the question and the research and includes an embedded 6:20 radio interview with researcher, Andrius Pašukonis,

How do you track a bunch of teeny-weeny frogs across the vast rainforests of South America? By putting teeny-weeny trackers on their teeny-weeny underwear, of course.

Biologist Andrius Pašukonis and his colleagues wanted to study the navigational capabilities of poisonous frogs that are too small for most animal tracking devices.

So he designed a Speedo-like harness that wraps around their back legs and props a tiny radio tracker on their backsides. The research team dubbed the invention “frog pants” — though Pašukonis says that’s “a bit of a misnomer.”

“My French colleagues like to call it a telemetric G-string,” Pašukonis, a senior scientist at Lithuania’s Vilnius University, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“It’s a lot of fine motor skills and a lot of practice in handling tiny frogs and sewing little frog harnesses. But we go find them in the rainforest, and we catch them, and we put the tags on.”

My favourite part is “… sewing little frog harnesses.” Note: The following video features a commercial and then, moves onto a 2:22 interview,

More from Goodyear’s June 13, 2023 article, Note: A link has been removed,

Pašukonis was a PhD student at the University of Vienna when he first started experimenting with the frog pants design, and later put it to use while working as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University in California.

He and is colleagues used the tracker pants to study the spatial skills of three frog species that range from three to five centimetres in length — diablito poison frogs in Ecuador, and brilliant-thighed poison frogs and dyeing poison frogs in French Guiana. The findings were published late last year in the journal e-Life [sic].

“The only way to study movements of animals is to be able to track them and follow them around, which nobody has managed to do or even tried to do with these tiny, tiny frogs in the rainforest,” he said.

“So that became my goal and challenge, where I spent a good part of my PhD trying different versions of different tags and different attachment methods, trial and error, to finally get to be able to put tags on and track them and study their behaviour.”

The frogs, he admits, didn’t particularly like the pants. But they didn’t seem to mind too much, and the team removed the trackers after four to six days. 

“Like any animal, they might scratch a little bit afterwards … like a dog with a new collar,” he said. “And then they just go on with their business.”

…

Other scientists have tried to track tiny frogs, from Goodyear’s June 13, 2023 article, Note: Links have been removed,

The design caught the eye of Richard Essner, a biologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville who studies animal locomotion, and has a particular interest in little frogs.

“Tracking small frogs with radio telemetry is not an easy thing to do,” Essner, who wasn’t involved in the Stanford research, told CBC in an email. 

About a decade ago, he says his lab attempted to use radio telemetry to track the movement of the threatened Illinois chorus frog using a transmitter attached via an elastic belt around the waist.

“Unfortunately, we had to abandon the study because we found that the transmitter apparatus was interfering with locomotion. If the belt was too tight, it caused abrasion. If it was too loose it slid down around the legs and left the frog immobilized and vulnerable to predation,” he said.

The frog pants, he says, seem to offer a solution to this conundrum. 

…

Lea Randall, a Calgary Zoo and Wilder Institute ecologist who specializes in amphibians and reptiles, ran into similar obstacles while trying to track northern leopard frogs at a reintroduction site in B.C. 

Like the Stanford researchers, her team experimented with several different designs before landing on one that worked — a belt-like attachment with some “very stylish” smooth glass beads to prevent abrasion. 

“Unfortunately, due to the weight of the radio transmitters at the time we couldn’t study smaller individuals,” she said. 

“We didn’t use leg straps, but I can see the advantages of that to help keep the transmitters in place. The creative thinking and problem solving that goes into developing these kinds of studies always amazes me.”

…

Finally, frogs may be smarter than we think, from Goodyear’s June 13, 2023 article,

When it comes to animal cognition and behaviour, Pašukonis says frogs are understudied —  and he believes, underestimated — compared to birds and mammals.

The poisonous rainforest frogs, he says, may be only a few centimetres in size, but when they breed, they carry their tadpoles between 200 to 300 metres across the rainforest to find them the perfect puddle to grow in.

Then they turn right around, and make their way home again. 

“How could a little frog — frogs typically are not thought to be very smart — learn to navigate on such a big scale? And how do they find their way around more on a fundamental scientific level?” Pašukonis said.

“We’re uncovering that overall amphibians, for example, might be smarter or have more complicated cognitive abilities than we thought.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper published by Pašukonis and his colleagues,

Contrasting parental roles shape sex differences in poison frog space use but not navigational performance by Andrius Pašukonis, Shirley Jennifer Serrano-Rojas, Marie-Therese Fischer, Matthias-Claudio Loretto, Daniel A Shaykevich, Bibiana Rojas, Max Ringler, Alexandre B Roland, Alejandro Marcillo-Lara, Eva Ringler, Camilo Rodríguez, Luis A Coloma, Lauren A O’Connell. eLife DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.80483 Version of Record Published: Nov 15, 2022

This paper appears to be open access.

A new species of frog named after J. R. R. Tolkien

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Caption: Hyloscirtus tolkieni Credit: Juan Carlos Sánchez-Nivicela / Archive Museo de Zoología, Universidad San Francisco de Quito

Magnificent is the word for this frog described in a February 13, 2023 news item on phys.org,

A magnificent [emphasis mine] new species of stream frog from the Andes of Ecuador was named after J. R. R. Tolkien, creator of Middle-earth and author of famous fantasy works “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings.” It lives in the pristine streams of the Río Negro-Sopladora National Park, a recently declared protected area that preserves thousands of hectares of almost primary forests in southeastern Ecuador.

…

A February 14, 2023 Pensoft Publishers blog entry (issued as a February 13, 2023 news release for EurekAlert), which originated the news item, describes stream frogs and the research required to find new species, Note: A link has been removed,

Stream frogs are a group of amphibians that inhabit the high Andes of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuado, Peru, and Bolivia. Their life is closely linked to the pure rivers and streams in the mountain areas of the Andes, hence the name “stream frogs”. The adults live in the riparian vegetation, and their tadpoles develop among the rocks of the rapid waters of the rivers.

The researchers, Juan C. Sánchez-Nivicela, José M. Falcón-Reibán, and Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia, named the new frog Hyloscirtus tolkieni in honour of one of their favourite writer. JRR Tolkien, a renowned author, poet, philologist and academic, is the creator of Middle-earth and the father of fantastic works such as “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings”. The amazing colours of this new frog species reminded them of the magnificent creatures from Tolkien’s fantasy worlds. 

Expeditions carried out since 2020 in the Río Negro-Sopladora National Park in Ecuador have allowed the discovery of a large number of species yet unknown to science. A protected area since 2018, this national park, located in the south of the country, is home to large forested areas that remain unstudied.

“For weeks, we explored different areas of the Río Negro-Sopladora National Park, walking from paramo grasslands at 3,100 meters elevation to forests at 1,000 m. We found a single individual of this new species of frog, which we found impressive due to its colouration and large size.”, indicated Juan Carlos Sánchez Nivicela, associate researcher at the Museum of Zoology of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ and the National Institute of Biodiversity, and co-author of the study where the frog is described.

The Río Negro Stream Frog is easily differentiated from all its frog releatives by its appearance and unique colouration. It is relatively large (65 mm long), a greyish green back with yellow spots and black specks, and a pale pink and black iris. Its throat, belly and flanks as well as the undersides of its legs are golden yellow with large black spots and dots, and its fingers and toes have black bars and spots and broad skin stripes.

“The new species of frog has amazing colours, and it would seem that it lives in a universe of fantasies, like those created by Tolkien. The truth is that the tropical Andes are magical ecosystems where some of the most wonderful species of flora, funga, and fauna in the world are present. Unfortunately, few areas are well protected from the negative impacts caused by humans. Deforestation, unsustainable agricultural expansion, mining, invasive species, and climate changes are seriously affecting Andean biodiversity”, said Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia, director of the Museum of Zoology of the Universidad San Francisco de Quito USFQ and associate researcher of the National Institute of Biodiversity, and co-author of the study.

The species is still only known from one locality and one individual, so information is insufficient to assess its conservation status and the risk of extinction. However, the authors agree that it is urgent to establish research and monitoring actions to study its life history and ecology, as well as its population size and dynamics. In addition, they suggest exploring new sites where additional populations may exist, and assessing whether their long-term conservation is affected by any threats, such as invasive species, mining, emerging diseases, or climate change.

The description of new species is an important mechanism to support global strategies for the conservation of vulnerable environments, since it reveals the great wealth of biodiversity that is linked to countless natural resources and environmental services. For example, amphibians are important pest controllers and play vital ecological roles in the stability of nature. Unfortunately, 57% of amphibian species in Ecuador are threatened by extinction.

This study was published in the international journal ZooKeys, in a scientific article that can be freely downloaded at the following link: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1141.90290

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A new stream treefrog of the genus Hyloscirtus (Amphibia, Hylidae) from the Río Negro-Sopladora National Park, Ecuador by Juan C. Sánchez-Nivicela, José M. Falcón-Reibán, Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia. ZooKeys 1141: 75-92 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1141.90290 Published: January 19, 2023?

This paper is open access.

BTW, my March 30, 2023 posting features Frog Finders, a citizen science project concerned with conservancy of frogs taking place in my home province of British Columbia.

Got a photo of a frog being bitten by flies? There’s a research study …

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Mountain Stream Tree Frog (Litoria barringtonensis) being fed on by flies (Sycorax) at Barrington Tops National Park. Credit: Tim Cutajar/Australian Museum

A June 21, 2022 news item on phys.org highlights a ‘citizen science’ project involving photography and frogs (Note: Links have been removed),

UNSW [University of New South Wales] Science and the Australian Museum want your photos of frogs, specifically those being bitten by flies, for a new (and inventive) technique to detect and protect our threatened frog species.

You might not guess it, but biting flies—such as midges and mosquitoes—are excellent tools for science. The blood “sampled” by these parasites contains precious genetic data about the animals they feed on (such as frogs), but first, researchers need to know which parasitic flies are biting which frogs. And this is why they need you, via the Australian Museum, to submit your photos.

…

A June 21, 2022 UNSW press release, which originated the news item, gives more details about the research and about the photographs the scientists would like to received,

Rare frogs can be very hard to find during traditional scientific expeditions,” says Ph.D. student Timothy Cutajar, leading the project. “Species that are rare or cryptic [inconspicuous] can be easily missed, so it turns out the best way to detect some species might be through their parasites.”

The technique is called “iDNA,” short for invertebrate-derived DNA, and researchers Mr. Cutajar and Dr. Jodi Rowley from UNSW Science and the Australian Museum were the first to harness its potential for detecting cryptic or threatened species of frogs.

The team first deployed this technique in 2018 by capturing frog-biting flies in habitats shared with frogs. Not unlike the premise of Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, where the DNA of blood-meals past is contained in the bellies of the flies, Mr. Cutajar was able to extract the drawn blood (and therefore DNA) and identify the species of amphibian the flies had recently fed on.

These initial trials uncovered the presence of rare frogs that traditional searching methods had missed.

“iDNA has the potential to become a standard frog survey technique,” says Mr. Cutajar. “[It could help] in the discovery of new species or even the rediscovery of species thought to be extinct, so I want to continue developing techniques for frog iDNA surveys. However, there is still so much we don’t yet know about how frogs and flies interact.”

In a bid to understand the varieties of parasites that feed on frogs—so the team might lure and catch those most informative and prolific species—Mr. Cutajar and colleagues are looking to the public for their frog photos.

“If you’ve photographed frogs in Australia, I’d love for you to closely examine your pictures, looking for any frogs that have flies, midges or mosquitoes sitting on them. If you find flies, midges or mosquitoes in direct contact with frogs in any of your photos, please share them.”

“We’ll be combing through photographs of frogs submitted through our survey,” says Mr. Cutajar, “homing in on the characteristics that make a frog species a likely target for frog-biting flies.”

“It’s unlikely that all frogs are equally parasitized. Some frogs have natural insect repellents, while others can swat flies away. The flies themselves can be choosy about the types of sounds they’re attracted to, and probably aren’t evenly abundant everywhere.”

Already the new iDNA technique, championed in herpetology by Mr. Cutajar, has shown great promise, and by refining its methodology with data submitted by the public—citizen scientists—our understanding of frog ecology and biodiversity can be broadened yet further.

“The power of collective action can be amazing for science,” says Mr. Cutajar, “and with your help, we can kickstart a new era of improved detection, and therefore conservation, of our amazing amphibian diversity.”

In case you missed it the Participant Consent Form is here.

By sampling the blood of flies that bite frogs, researchers can determine the (sometimes difficult to spot) frogs in an environment. Common mist frog being fed on by a Sycorax fly. Photo: Jakub Hodáň

Two (very loud) new species in Australia: the Slender Bleating Tree Frog and the Screaming Tree Frog

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Slender Bleating Tree Frog (H.B. Hines) [downloaded from https://www.newcastle.edu.au/newsroom/featured/screaming-for-attention-surprise-discovery-of-two-new-and-very-loud-frog-species]

A November 22, 2021 item on phys.org announces two ‘new to science’ frog species in Australia,

Scientists from the University of Newcastle [Australia], Australian Museum, South Australian Museum, and Queensland National Parks and Wildlife have found and described two new, very loud frog species from eastern Australia: the Slender Bleating Tree Frog, Litoria balatus, and Screaming Tree Frog, Litoria quiritatus.

Published today [November 22, 2021] in Zootaxa, the newly described Slender Bleating Tree Frog is present in Queensland, while the Screaming Tree Frog occurs from around Taree in NSW [new South Wales] to just over the border in Victoria.

Scientifically described with the help of citizen scientists and their recordings through the Australian Museum’s FrogID app, the new frog species were once thought to be one species [emphasis mine], the Bleating Tree Frog, Litoria dentata.

…

A November 22, 2021 University of Newcastle press release, which originated the news item, has a great headline and more details about the ‘new’ frog species (Note: Links have been removed; Curious about what they sound like? Check out Dr. Jodi Rowley’s Nov. 22, 2021 posting for the Australian Museum blog for embedded video and audio files),

Screaming for attention: Surprise discovery of two new – and very loud – frog species

..

Australian Museum herpetologist and lead scientist on the groundbreaking FrogID project, Dr Jodi Rowley, said that the Bleating Tree Frog is well known to residents along the east coast of Australia for its extremely loud, piercing, almost painful call.

“These noisy frog bachelors are super loud when they are trying to woo their mates,” Rowley said.

The scientists analysed many calls submitted to the FrogID project from across Queensland and NSW to differentiate between the calls.

“Our examination revealed that their calls differ slightly in how long, how high-pitched and how rapid-fire they are. The Slender Bleating Tree Frog has the shortest, most rapid-fire and highest pitched calls,” Rowley explained.

Chief Research Scientist of Evolutionary Biology, South Australian Museum, Professor Steven Donnellan said that genetic work was the first clue that there are actually three species.

“Although similar in appearance, and in their piercing calls, the frogs are genetically very different. I’m still amazed that it’s taken us so long to discover that the loudest frog in Australia is not one but three species,” Professor Donnellan said.

“How many more undescribed species in the ‘quiet achiever’ category are awaiting their scientific debut?”

The three species vary subtly in appearance. The Slender Bleating Tree Frog, as its name suggests, is slender in appearance, and has a white line extending down its side, and males have a distinctly black vocal sac.

The Screaming Tree Frog isn’t nearly as slender, doesn’t have the white line extending down its side, and males have a bright yellow vocal sac. In the breeding season, the entire body of males of the Screaming Tree Frog also tend to turn a lemon yellow.

The Robust Bleating Tree Frog is most similar in appearance to the Screaming Tree Frog, but males have a brownish vocal sac that turns a dull yellow or yellowish brown when fully inflated.

Professor Michael Mahony of the University of Newcastle’s School of Environmental and Life Sciences – who over his long career has developed a cryopreservation method, the first genome bank for Australian frogs – said the three closely-related species are relatively common and widespread.

“They are also all at least somewhat tolerant of modified environments, being recorded as part of the FrogID project relatively often in backyards and paddocks, as well as more natural habitats,” Professor Mahony said.

Dr Rowley noted that these new frog species brings the total number of native frog species known from Australia to 246, including the recently recognised Gurrumul’s Toadlet and the Wollumbin Pouched Frog.

“The research and help from our citizen scientists highlights the valuable contribution that everyone can make to better understand and conserve our frogs,” Rowley said.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Two new frog species from the Litoria rubella species group from eastern Australia by J. J. L. Rowley, M. J. Mahony, H. B. Hines, S. Myers, L.C. Price, G.M. Shea, S. C. Donnellan. Zootaxa, 5071(1), 1–41. DOI: https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5071.1.1 Published November 22, 2021

This paper appears to be open access.

You can find out more about the FrogID project here (I first mentioned it in an August 2, 2021 posting featuring a sadder frog story).

Help scientists identify why dead frogs are unexpectedly turning up across eastern Australia

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Australian scientists are calling on citizen scientists to help them understand why frogs in eastern Australia are dying in what seems to be record numbers.

Here’s more from a July 28, 2021 essay by Jodi Rowley (curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum at the University of New South Wales [UNSW]), and Karrie Rose (Australian Registry of Wildlife Health – Taronga Conservation Society, University of Sydney) for The Conversation (can also be found as a July 28, 2021 news item on phys.org), Note: Links have been removed,

Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a flurry of emails from concerned people who’ve seen sick and dead frogs across eastern Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

One person wrote:

“About a month ago, I noticed the Green Tree Frogs living around our home showing signs of lethargy & ill health. I was devastated to find about 7 of them dead.”

…

In most circumstances, it’s rare to see a dead frog. Most frogs are secretive in nature and, when they die, they decompose rapidly. So the growing reports of dead and dying frogs from across eastern Australia over the last few months are surprising, to say the least.

While the first cold snap of each year can be accompanied by a few localised frog deaths, this outbreak has affected more animals over a greater range than previously encountered.

This is truly an unusual amphibian mass mortality event.

In this outbreak, frogs appear to be either darker or lighter than normal, slow, out in the daytime (they’re usually nocturnal), and are thin. Some frogs have red bellies, red feet, and excessive sloughed skin.

The iconic green tree frog (Litoria caeulea) seems hardest hit in this event, with the often apple-green and plump frogs turning brown and shrivelled.

This frog is widespread and generally rather common. [emphasis mine] In fact, it’s the ninth most commonly recorded frog in the national citizen science project, FrogID. But it has disappeared from parts of its former range. [emphasis mine]

…

We simply don’t know the true impacts of this event on Australia’s frog species, particularly those that are rare, cryptic or living in remote places. Well over 100 species of frog live within the geographic range of this outbreak. Dozens of these are considered threatened, including the booroolong Frog (Litoria booroolongensis) and the giant barred frog (Mixophyes iteratus).

…

Here’s more about the Australian agencies investigating the mass mortality event and some information about how you can help, from the July 28, 2021 essay by Rowley and Rose,

… the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health is working with the Australian Museum, government biosecurity and environment agencies as part of the investigation.

…

While we suspect a combination of the amphibian chytrid fungus and the chilly temperatures, we simply don’t know what factors may be contributing to the outbreak.

We also aren’t sure how widespread it is, what impact it will have on our frog populations, or how long it will last.

While the temperatures stay low, we suspect our frogs will continue to succumb. If we don’t investigate quickly, we will lose the opportunity to achieve a diagnosis and understand what has transpired.

We need your help to solve this mystery.

Please send any reports of sick or dead frogs (and if possible, photos) to us, via the national citizen science project FrogID, or email calls@frogid.net.au.

You can find FrogID here. At this writing (Monday, Aug. 2, 2021), there doesn’t seem to be a specific link to the current investigation on the FrogID homepage, which is devoted to reporting frog sounds. However, at the bottom of the homepage there is a ‘Contact us’ section with a ‘Research Enquiries’ option.

For any Canadians who are reading this and are unable to participate but would still like to contribute to frog welfare, there’s a Canadian effort, frogwatch. For anyone in the UK, there’s Froglife. Both of which, like FrogID, are citizen science projects.

Ethiopia’s new species of puddle frog and an update on Romeo, the last Sehuencas water frog

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It seems to be to my week for being a day late. Here’s my Valentine Day (February 14, 2019) celebration posting. I’ve got two frog stories, news of a dating app for animals, and a bonus (not a frog story) at the end.

Ethiopia

For the last few years I’ve been getting stories about new frog species in Central and South America. This one marks a change of geography. From a February 12, 2019 news item on ScienceDaily,

A new species of puddle frog (order: Anura, family: Phynobatrachidae, genus: Phrynobatrachus), has just been discovered at the unexplored and isolated Bibita Mountain in southwestern Ethiopia. The research team named the new species Phrynobatrachus bibita sp. nov., or Bibita Mountain dwarf puddle frog, inspired by its home.

A new species of puddle frog (female Phrynobatrachus bibita sp. nov.) from an unexplored mountain in southwestern Ethiopia. Credit: Courtesy NYU Abu Dhabi researchers S. Goutte and J. Reyes-Velasco.

Here’s more from a February 13, 2019 New York University Abu Dhabi press release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item (Note: I have reformatted parts of the following press release),

In summer 2018, NYU Abu Dhabi Postdoctoral Associates Sandra Goutte and Jacobo Reyes-Velasco explored an isolated mountain in southwestern Ethiopia where some of the last primary forest of the country remains. Bibita Mountain was under the radars of the team for several years due to its isolation and because no other zoologist had ever explored it before

“Untouched, isolated, and unexplored”

“It had all the elements to spike our interest,” says Dr. Reyes-Velasco, who initiated the exploration of the mountain. “We tried to reach Bibita in a previous expedition in 2016 without success. Last summer, we used a different route that brought us to higher elevation,” he added.

Their paper, published in ZooKeys journal, reports that the new, tiny frog, 17 mm for males and 20 mm for females, is unique among Ethiopian puddle frogs. Among other morphological features, a slender body with long legs, elongated fingers and toes, and a golden coloration, set this frog apart from its closest relatives. “When we looked at the frogs, it was obvious that we had found a new species, they look so different from any Ethiopian species we had ever seen before!” explains Dr. Goutte.

Back in NYU Abu Dhabi, the research team sequenced tissue samples from the new species and discovered that Phrynobatrachus bibita sp. nov. is genetically different from any frog species in the region.

“The discovery of such a genetically distinct species in only a couple of days in this mountain is the perfect demonstration of how important it is to assess the biodiversity of this type of places. The Bibita Mountain probably has many more unknown species that await our discovery; it is essential for biologists to discover them in order to protect them and their habitat properly,” explains NYU Abu Dhabi Program Head of Biology and the paper’s lead researcher Stéphane Boissinot, who has been working on Ethiopian frogs since 2010.

About NYU Abu Dhabi

NYU Abu Dhabi is the first comprehensive liberal arts and science campus in the Middle East to be operated abroad by a major American research university. NYU Abu Dhabi has integrated a highly-selective liberal arts, engineering and science curriculum with a world center for advanced research and scholarship enabling its students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world and advance cooperation and progress on humanity’s shared challenges. NYU Abu Dhabi’s high-achieving students have come from 120 nations and speak over 120 languages. Together, NYU’s campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai form the backbone of a unique global university, giving faculty and students opportunities to experience varied learning environments and immersion in other cultures at one or more of the numerous study-abroad sites NYU maintains on six continents.

These are very small frogs with males growing to about 17mm, or 0.6 inches and females growing up to 20mm, or 0.8 inches.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

A new species of puddle frog from an unexplored mountain in southwestern Ethiopia (Anura, Phrynobatrachidae, Phrynobatrachus) by Sandra Goutte, Jacobo Reyes-Velasco, Stephane Boissinot. ZooKeys, 2019; 824: 53-70 DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.824.31570 (12 Feb 2019)

This paper appears to be open access.

Bolivia

First, here’s some background information. I wrote about Romeo, the Sehuencas water frog last year in my July 26,2018 posting: ‘Emergency!!! Lonely heart looking for love: Female. Stocky build. Height of 2 – 3 inches,’

“(Matias Careaga) [downloaded from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-made-matchcom-profile-bolivias-loneliest-frog-180968140/]That is a very soulful look. How could any female Sehuencas water frog resist it? Sadly, that’s the problem. They havn’t found any female Sehuencas water frogs yet.

It’s not for want of trying. Back in February 2018 worldwide interest was raised when scientists as the Cochabamba Natural History Museum (Bolivia) started a campaign to find a mate and raise funds for a search. …”

Happily, I stumbled on this January 17, 2019 New York Times article by JoAnna Klein for the latest about Romeo,

Romeo was made for love, as all animals are. But for years he couldn’t find it. It’s not like there was anything wrong with Romeo. Sure he’s shy, eats worms, lacks eyelashes and is 10 years old, at least. But he’s aged well, and he’s kind of a special guy.

Romeo is a Sehuencas water frog, once thought to be the last one on the planet. He lives alone in a tank at the Museo de Historia Natural Alcide d’Orbigny in Bolivia.

A deadly fungal disease threatens his species and other frogs in the cloud forest where he was found a decade ago. When researchers brought him to the museum’s conservation breeding center, they expected to find another frog he could mate with and save the species from extinction. But they searched stream after stream, and nothing.

…


He needed a match before he croaked, so last year conservation groups partnered to create a Match.com profile for him. People related to Romeo’s romantic struggles, and on Valentine’s Day last year, the company and his fans raised $25,000 to send an expedition team out to the cloud forest to find his Juliet.

…

And for all the lonely lovers searching for that special someone, Teresa Camacho Badani, a herpetologist at the museum who found Juliet [emphasis mine], has another message: “Never give up searching for that happy ending.”

Here is Juliet,

Photo of Juliet by Robin Moore, Global Wildlife Conservation [downloaded from [https://www.globalwildlife.org/press-room/lonely-no-more-romeo-the-sehuencas-water-frog-finds-love/]

If you don’t have much time, Klein’s article goes on to offer an engaging look at the successful expedition’s trip. For anyone who might like to keep digging, I have more. First, a video,


Global Wildlife Conservation has a January 15, 2019 posting (where I found the video) by Lindsay Renick Mayer which offers more detail via a Q&A (questions and answers) interview with Teresa Camacho Badani, the herpetologist who found Juliet. Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite,

Q. What was the habitat like where you found the frogs?
A. It is a well-preserved cloud forest where the climate is rainy, foggy and humid because of the streams, which are less than a meter in width with currents that form waterfalls, and ponds that are not very deep. Other biologists had looked here for the frog, even last year, with no success. We selected this spot after months of doing an analysis of historic records of where the species had originally been found—most of which have since been destroyed. Field evidence suggests that the frog is very, very rare and there are likely few left in the wild. And because it was clear that the threats to the frogs were so close in proximity—the streams around us were empty—we decided to rescue all five of these individuals for the conservation breeding program.

…


Q. What happens to these five frogs next?
A. Right now they’re in quarantine at the K’ayara Center at the museum, where they are starting to acclimate to their new home. We’ll make sure they have the same quality of water and temperature as in the field. After they are used to their new habitat and they’re eating well, we will give them a preventive treatment for the deadly infectious disease, chytridiomycosis. We do not want Romeo to get sick on his first date! [emphasis mine] When the treatment is finished, we can finally give Romeo what we hope is a romantic encounter with his Juliet.

…

The Global Wildlife Conservation’s January 15, 2019 press release offers still more information,

…

“It is an incredible feeling to know that thanks to everyone who believes in true love and donated for Valentine’s Day last year [2018], we have already found a mate for Romeo and can establish a conservation breeding program with more than a single pair,” said Teresa Camacho Badani, the museum’s chief of herpetology and the expedition leader. “Now the real work begins—we know how to successfully care for this species in captivity, but now we will learn about its reproduction, while also getting back into the field to better understand if any more frogs may be left and if so, how many, where they are, and more about the threats they face. With this knowledge we can develop strategies to mitigate the threats to the species’ habitat, while working on a long-term plan to return Romeo’s future babies to their wild home, preventing the extinction of the Sehuencas water frog.”

These are the first Sehuencas water frogs that biologists have seen in the wild in a decade, though over the years (including in 2018) scientists had searched this area for the species with no success. This team, which had done careful analysis ahead of time to determine the best places to look for the frogs, still didn’t encounter the Sehuencas water frog until after failing for a few long days to find any frogs of any species in what seemed like perfect amphibian habitat—a well-protected stream in the Bolivian wilderness. …

…

The scientists are hoping for more money (from Global Wildlife Conservation’s January 15, 2019 press release),

Romeo became an international celebrity on Valentine’s Day in 2018 with a dating profile on Match, the world’s largest dating company. Now he is a powerful flagship for conservation in Bolivia. These expeditions were made possible by the individuals in more than 32 countries who made donations last year that were matched by Match for a total of $25,000.
“Our entire Match community rallied behind Romeo and his search for love last year,” said Hesam Hosseini, CEO of Match. “We’re thrilled with this outcome for Romeo and his species. He now joins the list of millions of ‘members’ who have found meaningful relationships on Match.”

Romeo’s followers can continue to cheer on him and his species by making a donation to support these conservation efforts. They can also stay up to date on these expeditions and other news about the most eligible bachelor through GWC’s blog, mailing list and social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and the Alcide d’Orbigny Natural History Museum’s Facebook page. Romeo has also now taken to Twitter to share his thoughts on dating, love and romance.

Animal dating apps

Do check out Romeo’s Twitter feed. You may find something appealing such as this link to a February 14, 2019 news item on the News for Kids blog which discusses dating apps for animals. Romeo’s story is recounted and then there’s this about an app for farm animals,

…

In the United Kingdom a company called Hectare has come up with “Tudder” – an unusual way for farm animals to find partners.

Tudder is a “dating” app which allows farmers to easily find mates for their cows and bulls. Farmers can post pictures of their animals to the app, and swipe through pictures and descriptions to see other animals in need of a mate.

…

Tudder may sound a bit silly, but farmers say it saves them time and money because they don’t have to travel with their animals to find them a mate.

Funny thing is, I was wondering about Romeo just the other day and so, thanks is owed to the Beakerhead Twitter feed where I stumbled across the Romeo update. Thank you

Bonus

I have two furry bonuses. First, the cats,

The excerpt is from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s February 15, 2019 article by Devon Murphy about ‘Catwalk: Tales From The Cat Show Circuit’, a CBC documentary as is this excerpt,

Her hair is perfect, freshly washed, blow-dried, and combed, and her eyes are shining. She’s ready to compete and is calm as the judge approaches. Then, he takes a feather and twitches it in front of her face, and she turns on her back, furry stomach exposed, and bats at it with her immaculate paws.

…

Now for the pièce de résistance. Thank you to LaineyGossip (fifth paragraph) for this moment of “pure joy”,

That dog knows she’s a champion, whether or not she’s the fastest on the course. On February 10, 2019, she was a furry streak of lightning … in the 8″ division of the Westminster Dog Show’s Masters Agility Championship competition. Belated Happy Valentine’s Day.

Emergency!!! Lonely heart looking for love: Female. Stocky build. Height of 2 – 3 inches.

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(Matias Careaga) [downloaded from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-made-matchcom-profile-bolivias-loneliest-frog-180968140/]

That is a very soulful look. How could any female Sehuencas water frog resist it? Sadly, that’s the problem. They havn’t found any female Sehuencas water frogs yet.

It’s not for want of trying. Back in February 2018 worldwide interest was raised when scientists as the Cochabamba Natural History Museum (Bolivia) started a campaign to find a mate and raise funds for a search. ( I don’t know how I missed this story the first time. For long time readers, this is my frog story for this year.)  From a February 14, 2018 article by Anoop Menon for India.com,

…

Scientists are scouring for a mate for Romeo, who has been calling forth for mates for the last nine years now. But alas, a mate hasn’t been found in the rivers and streams of the Sehuencas water frog’s natural habitat so far. So scientists have decided to make a Match.com profile for the lovelorn frog, according to the BBC [British Broadcasting Corporation]. The effort hopes to raise awareness of the condition of the Sehuencas water frog and raise money to fund searches for the Sehuencas water frog in areas where they once thrived.

Romeo’s dating profile reads, “I’m a pretty simple guy. I tend to keep to myself and have the best nights just chilling at home, maybe binge-watching the waters around me. I do love food, though, and will throw a pair of pants on and get out of the house if there’s a worm or snail to be eaten!” His preference is for females between two to three inches tall and is okay with drinkers but not smokers. But honestly, at this point, he should be fine with just about anything.

All jokes aside, Romeo’s plight is an important one. The profile links to the campaign donation page that it is part of, with an aim of raising USD 15,000 to search for more Sehuencas water frogs. And Match.com is doing its part by matching all donations made from February 9 to today, Valentine’s Day.

…

Zoe Schlanger’s February 10, 2018 article for Quartz, in the context of Romeo’s (and the scientists’) quest, offers information about the ‘current state of amphibia’, Note: Links have been removed)

…

As the Earth faces what some experts call its “sixth mass extinction,” amphibians, like frogs, are among the most imperiled. Around half of amphibian species (which includes toads, salamanders, frogs, and newts) are reported to be in decline. A third are considered to be threatened with extinction.

Last year, 10,000 critically endangered “scrotum frogs” that lived in Lake Titicaca on the border between Bolivia and Peru died en masse. In the US, federal scientists say the overall amphibian population is shrinking in size by 3.8% every year. That trend has continued since the 1960s, due to a mix of climate change, pesticide applications, and diseases like infectious fungi which can quickly decimate populations.

Frogs seem to be especially vulnerable. Roughly 74% of frog species globally are in decline, and 80% of the frog species that live in India are threatened, a researcher recently told the Hindustan Times.

Hande Atay Alam‘s February 12, 2018 article for CNN adds a few more details about Romeo and about the effort to save him,

Arturo Munoz [Arturo Muñoz Saravia] , founder of the Bolivian Amphibian Initiative and GWC [Global Wildlife Conservaation] associate conservation scientist, said, “When biologists collected Romeo 10 years ago, we knew the Sehuencas water frog, like other amphibians in Bolivia, was in trouble, but we had no idea we wouldn’t be able to find a single other individual in all this time.”

Romeo started to call for a mate about a year after he was brought into captivity and Munoz pointed out that those calls have slowed in the last few years.

“We don’t want him to lose hope, and we continue to remain hopeful that others are out there, so we can establish a conservation breeding program to save this species,” Munoz said.

Update

They raised almost $25,000 in funds to search for a female but there’s been no luck yet. Sehuencas water frogs live for about 15 years and Romeo has lived in the Cochabamba Natural History Museum for the last nine or 10 years. You do the arithmetic.

Apparently, Sehuencas water frogs were once found in both Ecuador and Bolivia. Today, there are only two regions of Bolivia (Cochabamba and Santa Cruz) where they are reputed to live. (There is more about the current search for a mate in a July 26, 2018 news item on phys.org.)The Sehuencas water frog Wikipedia entry has this to say (Note: Links have been removed),

While it is currently listed as vulnerable by the IUCN [International Union for Conservation of Nature], this is based on an assessment that has not been updated since 2004.[1] No individuals have been encountered in the wild since 2008.

You can find out more about Muñoz’s Bolivian Amphibian Initiative here. There don’t seem to be any Romeo updates on the website but they still seem to be gathering donations. Romeo’s dating profile is here.

Plea

One possibility occurred to me (and I imagine others), if there’s someone out there who has a female Sehuencas water frog in their aquarium at home, please consider saving the species. I’m certain a deal can be made.

Finally,. Good luck, Romeo!

Call for art (and possible donation) featuring amphibians for Precious Frogs Art Exhibit and fundraising effort

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Thanks to the August 24, 2017 Opus Art Supplies newsletter (received via email), I got notice about this call for art (from the Opus Call for Submissions webpage),

Submission Deadline:

September 6, 2017

Date:  September 29, 2017 – December 15, 2017 [for Amphibian Art Exhibit at Science World in Vancouver, Canada]

Paint, draw, print, sculpt, design, photograph the province’s [British Columbia] frogs, toads and salamanders, and consider how art can combat threats to amphibian survival including habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, and disease. Because this is a fundraising event, we are hoping to engage artists to donate artwork for sale at the exhibition, with proceeds towards the long-term conservation of our native amphibians. However, you can choose to exhibit only. To submit, please download the call for artists for full details and instructions.

We encourage small pieces (for example: 5×7, 6×4, 8×8, 8×10 inches or other small size you enjoy working in) or small sculptures to ensure accessibility for all artists. We realize that artists are often asked to donate artwork for charity, and we respect and value the fact that artists have been very generous in supporting the causes they believe in. We hope you will consider ours.For more information and questions, contact us: info@preciousfrog.ca

Precious Frog, the organization (the exhibition is Precious Frogs) requesting the art has more detail in its (On the spot webpage) June 12, 2017 initial call for submissions,

Are you an artist? Are you passionate about art and conservation? Are you interested in creatively exploring how to celebrate British Columbia’s amphibians through art?

This is your opportunity to submit a piece of art for a three-month long art exhibition to be launched at Science World in Vancouver on September 29, 2017.

We are very excited to announce that we are partnering with TELUS World of Science to bring you the first art exhibition in Vancouver entirely dedicated to the amphibians of the province. The Precious Frogs Art Exhibition will integrate art and conservation by showcasing a variety of visual and media art pieces combined with scientific and educational information on the challenges faced by amphibians in our province.

Elsewhere in North America, artists have already demonstrated their creativity to raise awareness about the global decline of amphibians. In North Carolina, artist Terry Thirion has initiated the Disappearing Frogs Project, in 2013.

But this is a first in Vancouver, and with the Precious Frogs art exhibition, we hope to inspire artists to be a bridge between scientists and the broader public and to promote awareness and action for the long-term conservation of all of our precious amphibians. Additional film screenings, educational events, and art workshops will be presented at Science World in the fall as part of the art exhibition.

To us, amphibians are intriguing, beautiful, complex, inspiring, unusual, and more. What do you see?

Paint, draw, print, sculpt, design, photograph the province’s  frogs, toads and salamanders, and consider how art can combat threats to amphibian survival including habitat loss, pollution, invasive species, and disease. Submit your most convincing art piece. Your work will support the Oregon Spotted Frog Recovery Team’s efforts to conserve amphibians in British Columbia.

To submit, please download the call for artists for full details and instructions. The submission deadline is September 6, 2017. For more information and questions, contact us: info@preciousfrog.ca

And mark your calendar: the opening reception for the art exhibition will be on Tuesday, October 3 from 6 to 8 pm at Science World.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are you organizing this event?

Amphibians serve an important role in ecosystems and are particularly sensitive to changes in the environment that ultimately affect us all. This volunteer-run project aims to promote awareness and raise funds for the long-term conservation of our native amphibians.

Why are you asking artists to donate artwork?

Because this is a fundraising event, we are hoping to engage artists to donate artwork for sale at the exhibition, with proceeds towards the long-term conservation of our native amphibians.  We encourage small pieces (for example: 5×7, 6×4, 8×8, 8×10 inches or other small size you enjoy working in) or small sculptures to ensure accessibility for all artists. We realize that artists are often asked to donate artwork for charity, and we respect and value the fact that artists have been very generous in supporting the causes they believe in. We hope you will consider ours.

I don’t want to donate my artwork. Can I still participate?

Yes absolutely! You can choose to have your artwork on display at the exhibition and marked “Not For Sale.” The artwork will be returned to you at the end of the exhibition, and you are then free to sell your piece as you wish. We encourage artists to consider a donation to the Precious Frogs Project on subsequent sales of amphibian-related artwork. The gesture will always be appreciated.

How much will the artwork be sold for?

Artwork will be sold at accessible, standardized prices ($20 – $50) for small works. Larger pieces will be sold at prices recommended by the artist.

Why should I participate?

We feel passionate about the conservation of amphibians, and we hope you will too. This project is part of a series of exhibits such as the Disappearing Frogs Project in the United States. If you participate in our project, you will become part of a larger context. Ultimately, this project is about opening people’s eyes on amphibian extinction, and artists have the capacity to express themselves and help change the views of people on these very important issues. Additionally, the publicity about the event and the public exposure artists will receive during the three-month long exhibition are factors that we hope artists will value, in addition to becoming active contributors to the long-term conservation of amphibians.

How do I find out more information about amphibians at risk in BC?

A good starting point is our Frog guide on our website, which lists all BC’s native amphibians — frogs, toads, and salamanders. If you would like to learn more or have specific questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at: info@preciousfrog.ca

Do you accept volunteers?

Yes! Volunteers are welcome to help us with the different dimensions of this project and the events that we are planning during the three-month exhibition. Please check out our current volunteer position posting and contact us for additional opportunities.

Text: Isabelle Groc

Here’s a sample of what’s on preciousfrog.ca’s call for submission webpage,

Artwork: Lord Byng Secondary School, Grade 10 Honours art class

I wish Precious Frog good luck with its fundraising efforts and greater exposure for any artists who participate.