{"id":5547,"date":"2015-08-11T06:37:51","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T06:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=5547"},"modified":"2015-08-11T06:37:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-11T06:37:51","slug":"the-frogs-youll-regret-picking-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/the-frogs-youll-regret-picking-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The Frogs You’ll Regret Picking Up"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"bt1508_greg_frog\"<\/a>
This is a photo of Aparasphenodon brunoi (Bruno’s Casque-headed Frog). Credit: Carlos Jared\/Butantan Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carlos Jared, of the Instituto Butantan in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, was collecting specimens of the frog\u00a0Corythomantis greeningi<\/em>\u00a0in the field when his hand was injured by a spine on the amphibian\u2019s head. Intense pain spread up his arm and persisted for five hours.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat clued us in that there was something a bit different about this frog,\u201d says Jared\u2019s colleague Edmund Brodie Jr., of Utah State Univ., in an interview with\u00a0R&D Magazine<\/em>,Bioscience Technology’s<\/em>\u00a0sister publication. \u201cMany, many frog species are poisonous, and those repel predators if a predator eats them, bites or chews them. The difference with a venomous animal is they can use those skin toxins to inflict the toxins onto another animal \u2026 without being chewed up or eaten.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But the researchers are calling for a reclassification of\u00a0C. greeningi\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Aparasphenodon brunoi<\/em>, Brazilian hylid frogs, as venomous. Their work is described in Current B<\/b>iology.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a whole new level of anti-predator defense than we\u2019ve ever imagined,\u201d Brodie says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brodie describes\u00a0C. greeningi<\/em>\u00a0as an amphibian that dwells in dry desert areas. Surrounding vegetation is limited to cacti. The frog habitats crevices in the rocks, only exposing their heads. \u201cWhen a person or a predator reaches in to grab the frog, they grab the head and that\u2019s where the spines are,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

A. brunoi\u00a0<\/em>populate the Brazilian rain forests and live in bromeliad plants. Similar to\u00a0C. greeningi<\/em>,\u00a0A. brunoi\u00a0<\/em>positions itself in the plant\u2019s axil with its head exposed.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the researchers, both species\u2019 skulls consist of numerous bony spines, which are enlarged in the nasal, jaw and occipital regions. More prominent spines are located near the nostril and upper lip area, associated with concentrations of mucous and granular glands. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The frogs exhibit the ability to turn and rotate their heads, a behavior unusual for frogs, according to Brodie. \u201cSo if you grasp one of these frogs by the body, it can turn the head and start jabbing into your hand with the spines and at that point you drop it immediately.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Startlingly, the venom exuded by\u00a0A. brunoi\u00a0<\/em>is 25 times more potent than the venom of the deadlyBothrops<\/em>\u00a0pitviper. Though the delivery system is inferior to a pitvipers\u2019, the researchers warn venom seeping into a wound from the spine could be dangerous to a would-be predator.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith any project like this, there are more questions raised than answered,\u201d says Brodie. \u201cWe\u2019re working to more fully characterize the skin secretions and look histologically at those glands to see what\u2019s the different about these frogs.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carlos Jared, of the Instituto Butantan in S\u00e3o Paulo, Brazil, was collecting specimens of the frog\u00a0Corythomantis greeningi\u00a0in the field when his hand was injured by a spine on the amphibian\u2019s head. Intense pain spread up his arm and persisted for five hours. \u201cThat clued us in that there was something a bit different about this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-biology","category-research"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1-300x230.jpg",300,230,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",85,65,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",420,323,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",96,74,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/bt1508_greg_frog1.jpg",150,115,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Biology<\/a> Research<\/a>","tag_info":"Research","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}