Frog Blogging

MSNBC had a couple of articles about frogs that were worth sharing.

The first indicates that a widespread pregnancy test from the 30s to the 60s may be to blame for the spread of a fungus that’s currently killing off frogs worldwide.

What was this pregnancy test you might ask?

That test involved taking the urine of a woman and injecting it into an African clawed frog. If the woman was pregnant, the hormones in her urine would stimulate ovulation in the frog and it would spawn within a matter of hours.

The species was exported to labs around the world in huge quantities from South Africa from the 1930s — the decade in which [South African biologist Che] Weldon has traced the first recorded case of the fungus by examining preserved frogs in museum collections.

The second article talks about the exact same fungus that threatens to wipe out Panama’s Golden Frog, its national emblem.

The mysterious mold threatening the frog is spreading quickly in Panama, according to a report published by Southern Illinois University on Monday. It grows over the animals’ skin, sealing it up and effectively choking them to death,

“Many frogs use their skin as we use our lungs. If it gets blocked up, they die,” said zoologist Karen Lips at Southern Illinois.

A separate study published last month in the journal Nature cited global warming as a probable cause for the proliferation of the fungus.

I think this should serve as a good reminder how much damage we can cause when we move species around to places they don’t normally occur. You don’t think this applies to you? What do you have planted out in your yard? Native plants? Or whatever they sold you at the store?