Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Up the food chain and licking frogs

A scientist who just finished her master's degree from Cornell University is trying to figure out where, exactly, frogs get their poison from.

Her method? She licks them.

Valerie Clark is trying to trace how frogs in tropical forests send signals to predators that say "don't eat me." The thought is that poisons move up the food chain before they get into the frogs - from plants that are eaten by ants that are eaten by frogs.

In an article on National Geographic's Web site, Clark notes:

"What would be really amazing is to see the frogs eating the ants, and the ants and other insects eating the plants, and then we get lucky and the [samples of all three] that we've collected and filmed all have the same toxins," she said.

Frog-licking isn't for the weak, but it does help scientists determine certain toxins without the need to ship frog samples to a lab. You do have to be careful, though, she said in the story:

"I don't recommend this," the biologist cautioned, "because if you lick the wrong frog it can be very bad."

Check out the full story here:

For Frog-Licking Scientist, the Tongue Says It All

Cheers,
-SueVo

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

she sounds quite brilliant-- the New York Times and every other major news media including the BBC, Science, etc have covered her unconventional research over the past few years!