frogs
grrlscientist | March 29, 2010tags: evolution, evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, animal behavior, molecular ecology, parental care, mating systems, monogamy, sexual selection, frogs, poison dart frogs, Dendrobatidae, Ranitomeya, researchblogging.org,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper, journal club
Peruvian mimic poison frog, Ranitomeya imitator.
Image: Jason Brown [larger view]
To know the breeding system is to know the genetic architecture of a species.
To know the evolution of a breeding system is to know how evolution works ..
~ Lewis & Crowe, Evolution (1955)
Genetic tests have revealed the…
sastyk | March 12, 2010Note: It hasn't happened yet here, although we heard them down the hill in the valley yesterday. But we seem to be having an early spring, even though we've still got more than a foot of snow to melt off. I wrote this last year, and though the precise circumstances are different, the need for that sound is just the same. I know I owe y'all new content, but this one seemed appropo. Has spring sprung for you?
Spring doesn't come easily in upstate New York - she wrestles with Old Man Winter for a long, long time before he gives up. The first sign is the daffodils, up a small amount in…
Not Exactly Pocket Science - panic aboard the Titanic, the rise of polar bears and emasculated frogs
edyong | March 2, 2010I'm trying something new. Right from the start, I've always tried to write fairly long and detailed write-ups of new papers but this means that on any given week, there are always more stories than time and my desktop gets littered with PDFs awaiting interpretation.
So, I'm going to start doing shorter write-ups of papers that don't make the cut, linking to more detailed treatments on other quality news sources. This is something that I hope science journalists will do more of. It stems from a Twitter conversation where I asked if I should (a) write up short versions of these stories, (b)…
grrlscientist | January 1, 2009tags: Ranitomeya tolimense, Golden-headed Poison Frog, amphibians, nature, image of the day
Golden-headed Poison Frog, Ranitomeya tolimense.
Image: Alonso Quevedo, Fundacion Proaves [larger view].
The South American country, Colombia, is home to more threatened amphibian species than any other country on earth. In a bid to protect some of them, such as the Golden-headed Poison Frog, Ranitomeya tolimense, conservation groups recently purchased some undisturbed forest and created the Ranita Dorada Amphibian Reserve.
grrlscientist | March 18, 2008tags: amphibians, frogs, toads, salamanders, streaming video
Frogs Forever? Only if we leap in to save them. There's a global crisis facing all amphibians -- frogs, toads and salamanders -- they're vanishing before our very eyes. [2:11].
gregladen | March 13, 2008You've probably heard that this is the year of the frog. But with all the hype about the election, the war, the economy, robots, and so on, it is easy to forget. The Wildlife Conservation Society has a nice frog slide show on this site, and a list of things you can do to save "the frog" and the ironically named "amphibian ark" (a joint effort of three major conservation organizations) has more.
(I say ironic because it is a biblical reference, and creationists don't believe in extinction ... I assume, or how could there be any species left since they don't believe in specialization ...…
grrlscientist | December 28, 2007tags: blue poison dart frogs, Dendrobates azureus, Dendrobatidae, NewScientist, Image of the Day
Blue Poison Dart Frogs, Dendrobates azureus.
Dendrobates azureus is a species of poison dart frog found in the Sipaliwini District in Suriname of South America.
Image: Gail Shumway/Getty Images 2007 (NewScientist calendar 2008). [Much larger view]
The poison dart frog is the common name for the Dendrobatidae family of small, diurnal frogs that are endemic to Central and South America. These frogs are widely referred to as poison arrow frogs or poison dart frogs, which reflectes the widespread…
laelaps | October 27, 2007
Until I saw this 1972 film I had no idea that amphibians wanted to rule the world, but apparently they are cold-blooded masterminds bent on destroying Homo sapiens, or at least wrecking a crotchety old man's birthday. Oddly enough, however, Frogs doesn't even live up to it's own name, there being only one frog in the entire film (most of the "frogs" are really toads), but such considerations didn't stop the filmmakers from buying everything that slinked, slithered, or crawled from the local pet shops and creating a classic, putrid piece of movie cheese.
The eco-thriller is a bit of a sub-…