In 1993, frogs were found dying en masse in Far North Queensland. When scientists analyzed their bodies, they found something weird. Their small bodies were covered in spores.
Plants & Animals
Aug 29, 2023
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23
Constant monitoring of vital health signs is needed in a variety of clinical environments such as intensive care units, for patients with critical health conditions, health monitoring in aged care facilities and prisons, ...
Optics & Photonics
Jun 30, 2023
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46
When large and warty cane toads were first brought to Australia nearly 100 years ago, they had a simple mission: to gobble up beetles and other pests in the sugarcane fields.
Plants & Animals
Jun 6, 2023
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26
Discoveries of albino animals have a unique ability to capture the public imagination, often leading to flurries of social media and news coverage. (Think Migaloo, the famous white humpback whale.)
Plants & Animals
Mar 28, 2023
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2
For male northern quolls, sex is a death sentence.
Plants & Animals
Feb 1, 2023
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83
You might think evolution is glacially slow. At a species level, that's true. But evolution happens every time organisms produce offspring. The everyday mixing of genes—combined with mutations—throws up new generations ...
Evolution
Jan 20, 2023
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61
Australian rangers have killed an invasive "monster" cane toad discovered in the wilds of a coastal park—a warty brown specimen as long as a human arm and weighing 2.7 kilograms (6 pounds).
Plants & Animals
Jan 20, 2023
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32
The phrase "to swallow one's tongue" has been around since at least the 1880s and has been repurposed in several languages to mean everything from falling silent to a general feeling of fear. While it's anatomically impossible ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 16, 2022
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195
A study of viruses that affect amphibians and reptiles has closed the gap on the knowledge of viruses affecting animals which until now has largely focused on humans and other mammals.
Plants & Animals
Oct 17, 2022
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5
Biodiversity is increasingly diminished by humanity's many impacts, one major aspect of which is urbanization. Although there are a lot of studies reporting that urbanization influences wildlife population sizes and distributions, ...
Evolution
Sep 7, 2022
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38
A toad can refer to a number of species of amphibians in the order Anura. A distinction is often made between frogs and toads by their appearance, prompted by the convergent adaptation among so-called "toads" to dry habitats. Many "toads" have leathery skin for better water retention, and brown coloration for camouflage. They also tend to burrow. However, these adaptations are not reliable indicators of its ancestry. Because taxonomy reflects only evolutionary relationships, any distinction between frogs and toads is irrelevant to their classification.
For instance, many members of the frog families Bombinatoridae, Discoglossidae, Pelobatidae, Rhinophrynidae, Scaphiopodidae, and some species from the Microhylidae family are commonly called "toads". However, the only family exclusively given the common name "toad" is Bufonidae, or the "true toads". Some "true frogs" of the genus Rana have also adapted to burrowing habitats, while a bufonid species in the genus Atelopus are conversely known by the common name "harlequin frogs". Similarly to frogs, toads also display metamorphosis from tadpole to sexually mature adult.
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