The Mysterious Vanishing Frogs of North America Essay -- Environment E

The Mysterious Vanishing Frogs of North America I have a passion for all things slimy, wet, and creepy-crawly. Some of the best quantify of my life have been spent on my knees, digging in the dirt for earthworms, traipsing back from ponds with buckets of putrid swamp water teeming with tadpoles, or chasing fat smallish toads in knee-high grass. I love the turn outdoors and all of the ugly animals that inhabit it. I like to catch them, watch them, and especially photograph them. For the interminable time, lizards have been the main focus of my photographic endeavors, but last summer, inspired by a book on frogs from the local library, I set out to document the lives of these often overlooked amphibians. I live in southern Florida near the Everglades, and I remember catching, mating, and raising dozens of frogs as a kid, so I didnt expect to have to lug my tripod and lenses very far to come upon a suitable subject. But much to my dismay, I didnt find a single frog in an entire afternoon of searching. In fact, in the year and half since my initial search, Ive seen only four frogs.I immediately assumed that pollution had decimated the populations of my favorite amphibian. I have no hard evidence, but I believe that this is a common belief overlap by many fellow repose naturalists. This makes scientific sense frogs spend most of their lives in water, have thin, easily permeable skin during all stages of their lives, and lay their gelatinous eggs in water. Pesticides and other pollutants accumulate in water, where they can easily diffuse into the thin skin of frogs. It all seems utterly logical.The catch is, this perfectly logical and widely believed answer is probably false. While there are never any absolutes in ecology, there is a l... ...y/froglog/FROGLOG-24-4.html Explanation for Naturally Occurring unnecessary Limbs in AmphibiansStanley K. Sessions and Stephen B. Ruth The Journal of Experimental Zoology 25438-47 (1990).http//www.hartwick.edu/biolog y/def_frogs/trem/Sessions&Ruth.html Sessions research groups web pagehttp//www.hartwick.edu/biology/def_frogs/Introduction/Introduction.html Morphological Clues from Multilegged Frogs atomic number 18 Retinoids to Blame? Stanley K. Sessions, R. Adam Franssen, and Vanessa L. Horner Science 1999 April 30 284 800-802. (in Reports)http//www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/284/5415/800 University of Wisconsin BioLabhttp//bioweb.uwlax.edu/zoolab/Table_of_Contents/Lab-4a/Trematode_Life-Cycle/trematode_life-cycle.htm Stanley K. Sessions Science 1998 January 23 279 459 (in Letters)