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About them Frogs...
The frogs of Lakeside are the stuff of legends. They
are known to be some of the largest bullfrogs in North America.
The Lakeside authority on frogs, "Turtle Boy, Protector of
Frogs" who was raised by their young, and put many to sleep
with gentle strokes across their bellies whilst they lay upside down in
the palm of his hand (unharmed) is unconcerned with last summer's ('96)
steep decline in their numbers. The summer of '95 saw record numbers of
the big green creatures, the shores crawling with croaking, bleating
amphibians. The summer of '96 saw a very low population. The hard winter
of '95 - '96 froze the lake deep, this may have been the cause in the
drop, or some disease could have invaded the local population.
We are following with keen interest, reports of mass
frog mutations in the mid-western United States, such as extra legs and
eyes, or eyes on the undersides of their heads. We intend to monitor our
population closely this summer with regular catch and release
excursions.
We have also discovered frogs do indeed enjoy
Budweiser beer. Many hot summer nights down at the dock, with torches
burning and ice cold Bud in a cooler, we've noticed frogs floating just
off the dock, watching as we party. Occasionally, a brave soul climbs up
on the dock to be doused in beer. They seem to love it, and do not jump
away unless there is a sudden lurching drunk. While the frog stays on
the dock, there is a hush you can't miss. There is a new king! All frogs
take note... a new king I say. Sooner or later, one of us lurches, we
can't help it; it's what we do. The frog jumps, and everybody has a good
laugh. Ya gotta love those frogs... It would be nice if they'd show up,
just once, with a case of beer. ...... Lord knows, they can drink it.
If the frogs are indeed mutating, and become masters
of the world, we're golden.
We believe the following advertisement from
"WOMAN'S WORLD" magazine, April 1936 holds some clues
regarding how they got here.
Update!
Autumn 1997
After a mild winter, we are pleased to report a
summer with a healthy population of frogs, and unprecedented numbers of
tadpoles. We have seen no evidence of mutations or malformations in any
of the local frogs. The frog mutation problem seems to be spreading
though, and the traditional media are covering the situation with some
interest.
Update!
Winter 1998 - 1999
The local frog population was way down this past
summer from what we expected after last summer's staggering numbers of
tadpoles. The warm weather we've had until very recently has had frogs
come out of hibernation in early December. The current drought situation
has dropped the water level in the lake to a level that will surely
freeze many frogs in the mud. We'll have to wait a few more months to
see how the little critters fared, but it doesn't look good.
| April
13, 1997
Scientists
make a frog levitate
LONDON(AP) -- British and
Dutch scientists say they have succeeded in floating a frog in air
-- using a magnetic field a million times stronger than that of
the Earth.
And, they say, there is no
reason why larger creatures, even humans shouldn't perform the
same gravity defying feat.
"It's
perfectly feasible if you have a large enough magnetic
field," said Peter Main, professor of physics at Nottingham
University, one of the British scientists who collaborated with
colleagues at the University of Nijmegen to create the first
levitating amphibian.
Their
endeavors are reported briefly in the current issue of the British
magazine New Scientist.
To hold
up the frog, the field had to be a million times that of the
Earth, the scientists said, Only then was it strong enough to
distort the orbits of electrons in the frog's atoms.
"If
the magnetic field pushes the frog away with sufficient force, you
will overcome gravity and the frog will float," Main said.
The
trick doesn't only work on frogs: Scientists say they have made
plants, grasshoppers and fish float in the same way.
"Every
ordinary object, whether it be a frog, a grasshopper or a
sandwich, is magnetic, but it's very rare to see such a
spectacular demonstration of this," said Main.
The
scientists said their frog showed no signs of distress after
floating in the air inside a magnetic cylinder. |
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Deformed frogs prompt national systematic search for cause
MADISON,
Wis.-- For the past several years deformed frogs have been
turning up in several sections of the country. Now scientists are
in the earliest stages of what many hope will be a national survey
-- a systematic, state by state and regional overview of the
extent of the problem.
These frogs have extra legs, or no legs, fingers protruding
from stomachs -- some have an eye in the middle of their back. So
far, there have been reports of unusually high numbers of deformed
frogs in Minnesota, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Quebec, but the
deformities have also been spotted in many other states around the
country.
"In the U.S., deformed frogs have been most fully
documented in the northeastern and midwestern sections of the
country," said Dr. Kathryn Converse, wildlife disease
specialist for the National Wildlife Health Center of the U.S.
Geological Survey's Biological Resources Division in Madison,
Wisconsin. "Now investigation and sampling of frog
populations is taking place in other regions, as well."
"At the present time," she explained, "most
states don't have an in-hand collection of frogs, so it's
impossible to tell how widespread the problem is."
Converse works in a diagnostic laboratory where many deformed
frog specimens have been sent for analysis. Herpetologists are
trying to build a data-base on deformed frogs, she said, so
research can be more systematized.
"We are trying to find what is and is not known about
these frogs," she said. "Not only scientists, but, more
and more, ordinary people are finding deformed frogs, and we need
a systematic sampling to determine the full extent of the
problem."
There are a number of studies now underway, said Converse, some
linking these deformities to chemicals in the environment.
According to Martin Ouellet of McGill University in Montreal,
the deformities are most strongly linked to pesticides. He and
four other scientists have been studying deformed and normal frogs
found in ponds in the St. Lawrence River Valley for the past four
years.
Normally, less than one percent of frogs are deformed, and
that's about what Ouellet found in frogs taken from pristine
ponds. But in ponds where pesticides are used nearby, as many as
69 percent of the frogs were deformed, he said.
Many scientists believe the problem lies with the new
generation of chemicals that mimic growth hormones called
retinoids. Retinoids powerfully affect development, and if they
are inside a growing animal at the wrong place at the wrong time,
they can cause deformities.
Recent laboratory experiments have determined that a pesticide
can mimic a retinoid and, conceivably, cause defects in frog
development, said David Gardner, a molecular biologist from the
University of California at Irvine.
"We should start screening chemicals, and we should start
with pesticides to see if they mimic naturally-occurring retinoids
in the body," Gardner said.
Other scientists link the deformities to parasites, but many
are sceptical of his theory.
"Some deformed frogs also have parasites," said Dr.
Converse. "But there are plenty of deformed frogs that have
no sign of parasites. There are probably a number of factors
involved. Researchers are coming at this problem from a number of
perspectives -- and that's good -- but we also need to get a
better handle on how to best investigate this problem." |
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The
Frog Killer - from
Discover Magazine November 1998
SOMETHING
IS KILLING FROGS all over the world. The list of suspects
includes acid rain, pollution, and vanishing wetlands. But the
real killer may be none of the above. A team of biologists
suspects that a previously unknown fungus may be at least
partially responsible for the global decline of frogs.
Last year reasearchers discovered
that a microbial parasite was infecting the skin of dying frogs in
Panama. A similar microbe turned up in Australia, but no one
could positively identify it. Now D. Earl Green, of the
National Institutes of Health, and Karen Lips, a biologist
currently at Southern Illinois University, along with researchers
in Australia, have announced that the frog killing parasite is a
fungus.
To date the researchers have found the
fungus in about 30 frog species from Australia, Central America,
and the United States and have shown that it kills frogs in
laboratory trials. The fungus attacks the frogs' skin, says
Green. Since frogs drink and breath through their skin, the
fungu may be suffocating and dehydrating them.
The fungus, apparently a new species of aquatic
chytrid fungi, has yet to be named. Chytrid fungi have not
previously been found to parasitize vertebrates, says Green, but
some live freely in water or soil and attack plants and insects.
The fungus may have been newly introduced to frog habitats, or
environmental changes may have made the frogs susceptible to a
parasite they had previously resisted.
"Maybe the fungus got stuck on a shoe or a
camera tripod of an American tourist, or even in the digestive
system of birds, and was brought in. It's not certain,"
says Green. "But we do that the disease is spreading by
as much as 19 miles a year in Panama." |
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