Latest / Stuff You Should Know / How Frogs Work

Transcript

How Frogs Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and there's Charles w Rivet Bryant, there's Jerry or Budweiser ruling.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Oh man, that's a call back the Budweiser frogs. Yep, man,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: they were no spuds mackenzie. I'll tell you that. I
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: remember when they're on their lily pads going what's up?
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I love that guy. Those guys, those guys. Man.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: We've seen a lot of ads in our lifetime, haven't we.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: We've recorded a lot of ads our lifetime. We have.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: We've really been contributing to the pile. How you feeling
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling great? Are you feeling froggy? I'm really sorry.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I had no idea this is gonna happen. Um, I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: am feeling froggy. And right off the bat, we should
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: go ahead and thank Tracy TV Wilson. Tracy V. Wilson
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: stuff you missed in history class, because this is one
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of her great great animal articles. Yep, she's written the best.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: She really has. Um. This one doesn't contain the words
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: mouth what was it? Mouth parts? Mouth parts? Yeah, she
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: tried to work it in. She just it got edited out.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: I think. Um, so we are we're talking frogs today, Chuck.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I can't believe we haven't talked about them before. I know,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I love frogs, Um, I love them too. And it's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: sad for us then, because it turns out that frogs
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: apparently are going extinct at an alarming rate. Entire species
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: just dropping off the face of the earth. In fact,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: one species one extinct here in our fair city of Atlanta.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Did you know that? Really? Yeah? Last um, oh, September
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: of two thousand and sixteen, so about a year ago,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the very last RABS fringe limbed tree frog died at
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the Atlanta Botanical Garden. His name was Toughy, and uh,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: from what I understand, it didn't like to be handled.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: That was his, that was his choice, you know. So
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: he was the last of it. The species was found
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I think in the late eighties or late nineties, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: we figured out pretty quickly that they were endangered, and
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the last one that was heard in the wild was
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: and I think two thousand five, and so they thought
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: tough he was the last one. And so a frog
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: species went extinct in Atlanta. And apparently that's just one
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: domino out of many. That's that's going on right now.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: There was a study from two thousand fifteen that concluded
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: three which is about two hundred species of frog species
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: have gone extinct since the nineteen seventies, right, which is like, wow,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that's it seems like a lot prepared are for it
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: to seem like even more? Are you ready for this? So?
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Amphibians and reptiles have really high extinction rates as it is.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: They apparently have an extinction rate of about ten thousand
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: times other animals, and frog's extinction rate is higher than
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: most other amphibians and reptiles. So the frogs are going fast.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And the reason why it matters, besides the fact that
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: we love frogs, is that they're also known as an
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: indicator species. They're particularly fragile, they're found all over the world,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and they seem to be trying to tell us that
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the Earth is going lopsided as far as well the
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: global ecosystem goes. That's sad. Yeah, I remember we talked
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: about those and I think was it charismatic megaphona? Yeah?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: I guess so. All right, so you might as well
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: get into this, almost said jump into this. But now
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I'm hyper aware of bad frog buns. Yeah. Sorry. Uh so,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Tracy makes a great point here. Um, talking about frogs,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and if you just said there with three percent of
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: there's of different species is two hundred, So that shows
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: you how many different species there are. Um, it's difficult
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: to kind of talk about frogs in one big sweeping
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: way because they differ so much, um, species to species.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: They can be what is it, the gold frog is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: less than a centimeter, then you have goliath frogs that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: are over a foot at detail a foot thirty two centimeters. Yeah,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a lot of them. Um, A lot of them like
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to be out at night. Some of them are more
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: active in the morning, in the afternoon. Sometimes they live
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: for a couple of years. Sometimes they live well, not
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: many many years, but several years. Yeah. One one of
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the main things that frogs are known for, it's just
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: croaking or ribbiting. That's it would seem like that's universal.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: It's not. There's plenty of species that don't make any noise. Yeah,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you think of green or brown. Uh, there are pink frogs, right,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: all kinds of colors. They are blue frogs. Um. The
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: difference between toads and frogs isn't We might as well
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: just consider one thing from what I can tell, right, Yeah, toads. True,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: toads belong to the Boufonidae family. Pretty sure, there's a
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: better way to say it. But it's a specific family
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that belongs to the order and Eura, which all frogs
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: belong to the order of Eura. So toads are frogs.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: But even within that distinction, Um, there are some things
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that they're like, no, that's actually a toad. Like toads
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: tend to have eyes that are lower on its head,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: more football shaped, whereas a frog has eyes higher up
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: on its head and they're usually quite round, right, Um,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But there are certain toads that have those kind of eyes,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: and there's certain frogs that have toad like eyes. Like
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: there's there's really you can't pin frogs down unless you're
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: in science class. Right, even with their tails. That was
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: great man, by the way, But even with their tails, right,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: So their their order, like I just said, a NeuRA
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: means tail lists and it's it separates them from the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: other amphibians. Um. The fact that frogs don't have tails
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: across the board. Actually no, there's two species that have tails. Yeah,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: they're very vexing. There's a coastal tailed frog and the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: mountain tailed frog. Uh and I looked them up. You know,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: they're little tiny tails and they are the reproductive organs.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: It's a penis then, I don't understand why they don't
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: just call it like the penis frog. There actually is
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a scrotum frog on Get this, there's a scrotum frog
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: population at Lake Titty Kaka. You can't make this up.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: This is what frogs are here for. It's just to
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: say amazing things. Here's one thing I didn't know, and
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be dropping in frog facts throughout. Um they molt.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I had no idea that frogs can mold. Every two
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: days they can mold, and they start out by um
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: eating their own skin around its mouth. They basically eat
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: the skin around the mouth, then pull pull the rest
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: of their skin over their head like a like a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: dirty T shirt, and then they eat that like a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: dirty T shirt. Imagine that, man, Like you know when
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: you get like a little your lip gets chopped and
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: you kind of bite it like a little piece and
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: you pull it off. Oh man, it's a little raw.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: We'll imagine if that piece was like your your whole skin. Yeah,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: and then you'd be a frog or a toad either one.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I think I'm more done with the toads because frogs
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: are generally the slicker skin. Um. Toads are the ones
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that kind of have the bumpy, dryer skin. And I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: think they're the ones like when you pick them up
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and look at them, they like stare into your soul? Right?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Get you trying to talk the toads? Do I think? So? Huh?
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Am I getting that confused with frogs? I don't know.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Have you ever kissed a frog? No? But I would
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: under what circumstances. I don't know. A couple of drinks,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: a frog or a toad? Who would you kiss either one?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I would kiss a toad, but then I would be
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: a little just because I love animals, um and think
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: they all deserve affection. But I would not. I would
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: think twice. And we're gonna go over this later, but um,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: licking a frog for hallucinogenic h good times? Yeah, you
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: might want to think even more than twice. Yeah, I would.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I would. I would not want to go down that road, right,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: But well, we'll get to that. There's I think you
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: can kiss a frog and not necessarily hallucinate. You can.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: You just have to plan it right on its big
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: old mouth really likes she will be like, here, take
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: my skin. I was gonna eat it myself, but you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: can have it. So the reason why I made that
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: bad but good science joke about pinning frogs down is
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: they are one of the go to animals that you
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: will dissect in school. And the reason why they're one
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: of the go to animals it's not just because teachers
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: hate frogs, or that teachers love frogs, but it's that
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: frogs they're trying to teach kids about internal organs um
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and not that of a frog. They're trying to teach
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: them about themselves. Because it turns out when you cut
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: open a frog, you might remember this, it's not a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: circuit board or a series of um balloons or golf balls.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: When you cut open a frog, their heart and lungs
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: and a stomach and a pancreas and a gall bladder
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and intestines and a liver. Yeah, largely connected in in
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the way that's similar to humans. Yeah, just all packed
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in that tiny little guy. I mean, they're all tiny organs,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: very cute, too appropriately sized. Yeah, they are cute. Remember
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: that smell though formaldehyde. The formaldehyde stink of death, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: it was not a good smell. It was not good um.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: And so beyond just the internal organs to chuck. Like,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: if you look at a frog skeleton, especially like it's arms,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: it's extremities, it bears a resemblance to a human anatomy
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: as well. Right, for sure, you've got humorous, a radia,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a radius, and the ulna, just like with your arm.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: And then the frog's legs in back, they have a femur,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a tibia, and a fibula just like your legs too. Yeah,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the only difference is the radius and ulnar refused, and
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: the tibia and fibula are fused where the not in
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: our bodies. And they have scapula and and clavicles, collar
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: bones and shoulder blades too. Right, So like there's just
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: basically little people with big mouths sort of. Well, there's
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: actually some big princes to they have fingers and toes,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: they do. They have usually and again it's tough to
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: generalize here, but a lot of frogs have four fingers
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: in the front on their front feet and five on
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: their back. Yeah, and these little digits are gonna be
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: they're gonna vary from species to species according to what
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: the frogs um locomotion needs are. So like, if it's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: a tree frog, they're gonna be long and flexi so
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: they can grab stuff. If they're swimmers, and all frogs
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and toads, we should point out need water to live. Yeah,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: we really have to get into that part um, which
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: we will. But they have little webbed feet in toes
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, it makes it easier for them to swim.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And what about the little burrowers, Yes, some of them.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I get the impression that they burrow um to hibernate
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: or estivate emilio estivate. We're feeling silly today, huh. I
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: was watching Breakfast Club last night for the first time
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: in years. How was it? It holds up? And I
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: know that movie by heart. It's really remarkable how well
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I know that movie. But it does hold up, I think.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: So the only thing that you know, like, it's not
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: a very diverse movie, like no, you know, five five
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: white kids and a white principle throwing a little bit
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: of casual racism here there. Yeah, but I mean, you know,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: John Hughes has been accused of that in recent years. Yeah,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: just Long Duck Dong was his too, Huh Yeah, of course.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Um and like the only time there were um, people
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: of different ethnicities in his movies, they were kind of
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: joked about or aped. I'm sure it's funny how history
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: can just like turn on you. You know. Yeah, he
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: was probably like, wait, no, everybody loves me. I'm John Hughes.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: What do you mean we were all we all thought
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: this was great. Don't you remember I'm John Hughes. Don't
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you know me? Yeah, it's very sad. Yeah, he was
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: gone too soon. Um where were we? Familia west of Best? Oh? Yeah,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: the Amilio estivate, which is like hibernation in warm temperatures,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: you're hot temperatures when it gets so hot out that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, you can't go hunt. You're
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: just like it's too hot. Yeah, I'm gonna dig myself
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: a little hole and and lay here until it cools
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: off a little bit. Yeah. And the whole point of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that was is that their feet, uh and hands are
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: shorter and wider like shovels, and like Amelia West of Best. Ironically, yeah,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that guy can dig a hole faster than anyone you've
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: ever seen. Uh, what are some of the different things.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: They don't have necks. You ever look at a frog,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: you know it did? He didn't have a big, long
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: neck that turns around and looks at you. They're just
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: sort of these little squat heads sitting directly on their bodies. Yeah,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: like Fred Blint style. Yeah. And they as a result,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: they can't turn their heads right. You can't lift them
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: up or down or turn them. If a frog ever
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: turns his head and looks at you, then that is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: a evil possessed frog. Which I mean if a frog
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: sitting there staring at you, especially if they're suddenly joined
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: by some companions, you should probably run away. There's just
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: something super creepy about him. I can't remember the movie Chuck,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: what is the horror movie that features lots and lots
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of frogs? No, I don't know. It's like the Point
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: of Them. I can't remember the name of it from
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the eighties, I believe, I don't know. I will happily
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: respond to anybody who writes it was it the day
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the frogs took over? That's right, the day the frogs
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: to still frog frog Nato frogs with an exclamation point.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: What else they don't have ribs. Um, they have a
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: pelvis that can slide up and down to help jump.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool. Which one the pelvis? Yeah, this is what
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: it has, like a hole in it and it slides
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: up and down the spine. I think so, so it
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: can help it jump. Yeah, I think that's pretty cool. Um.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And what else? I? Um, they they have well their
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: eyes chucked the eyes they have? Um? So, like I said,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: frogs typically have eyes that sit on the top of
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: their head and they can see quite well in a
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: lot like a very wide angle. They have a wide,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: wide view. Spantage Point could have put that better, but
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that helps compensate for the fact that they can't turn
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: their heads right. But apparently, as as Tracy says, there,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: what one eye is getting in information is not really
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: overlapping with the other eye. So they don't have binocular vision.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: They have vision from two different eyes. And um that
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: sounds like okay, whatever, who cares? But if you think
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: about the depth perception it would take to pick a
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: fly out of the air with your tongue, it suddenly
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: becomes quite impressive that they don't seem to have binocular vision.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: And have you did you do it any any switch
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: on their tongue, so chuck their tongue, right. They don't
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: have a tongue that's anchored to the back of their
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: mouth like we do. It's anchored to the front and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: they can throw it out. And there was this one
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: researcher who I think is working out of Georgia Tech,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: who filmed leopard frogs and the leopard frog can catch
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: an insect with its tongue in point zero seven seconds,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: which is five times faster than humans blink right, So um,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: researchers want to know, like, how are they doing that?
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: If you're hitting a fly with your tongue, you're gonna
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: knock it away from you. How do they grab it? Right?
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: They figured that yes, there was something sticky and they
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: they they determined that frog saliva is a non newtonium fluid,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: which remember we covered that in the Catchup episode. And
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: just like catch Up, a frog saliva can turn sticky
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: um or it can turn less sticky when you apply
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: force to it. So when the tongue and this saliva
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: on the tongue more importantly comes in contact forcefully with
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: an insect, it thins out and it covers the insect.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: But the moment it starts coming back and in the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: force reverses, and I'm sure I just got that wrong.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hear about about physics from everybody. But once
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: it stops being thin, it goes back to being viscous
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and somewhat sticky. And so now the fly or the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: insect has been covered in the sticky goo and is
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: attached to the tongue is being brought it back into
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the frog's mouth, and all that happens and less than
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: uh eight hundreds of a second. I'm sure they have
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: some pretty super cool slow now, yeah, they do for sure. Well,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: but since you mentioned the tongue though, because uh it
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: isn't anchor in the back of their mouths, they can't
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: use the tongue to push food down. So when a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: frog eats that there, they also don't have like a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: jaw that they can chew like you would think, you know,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: like humans do. Um, so they just swallow it in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a couple of gulps. And they actually, since you can't
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: use their tongue, they use their eyeballs their eyes sink
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: into the skull to push food down. So I just
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: have to ask Chuck, where do frogs stand in relation
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to jellyfish? And OCTOPI. Now wow, um, not ahead of
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: those two? Okay, so third, fourth, fifth, seventeen. Well, if
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: we're talking all animals, um, I don't know where to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: rank them, but we're talking crazy stuff, you should know animals.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I would go with number three for now. Okay. Uh.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And on those eyes, they have what's called a ah
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: nictitating is that right? Nictitating membrane. So you've probably seen
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: when frogs or toads go to dive under water, they
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: have a film like, uh, what's the other animal that
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: does that? It seems like we talked about that, we
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: have a film that covers the eye. I think alligators probably.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: Oh that sounds about right. I think that's right, yeah,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: which would make sense because alligators are reptiles yea, and
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: these guys are somewhat related to reptiles. Al Right, So
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: that's a lot of initial frog stuff body frog body stuff.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So let's take a break. Uh, let's talk a little
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: bit more about frog body stuff. All right, all right, dude,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: so we're back. Let's we're about to talk about frogs
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: getting it uh well quickly though, we never mentioned the ears.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a big one. You probably notice that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: frogs don't have these big funny ears that stick off
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: their head. They do have ears, they're just not external.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: That would be hilarious. They just said a little they did,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that would be funny. They just had a little, uh, tympanum,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the little ear drum behind each eye. Yeah, and you can,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: apparently if you know what you're doing. And most frog
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: species tell whether a frog is a male or a
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: female based on the size of their tympanum to their eyeball.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: In a male, I think the tympanum is bigger than
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the eye, and in a female it's either about the
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: same size or smaller. So there you go. Now you
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: know frogs. And finally, we would be remiss without talking
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: about the vocal sack because frogs and toads are are
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: most known, at least to me, for that great, great
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: sound they make in the evening time in the American
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: South and all over the world. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: So you know, like you've seen pictures and video of frogs,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: like the skin under their chin just suddenly turns into
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a huge bubble. So what they're doing right then is
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: they're taking in a tremendous amount of air and they're
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: holding it in their vocals are in their air sack, right,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and they're moving it, keeping it in their their air sack.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: They're not releasing it, but they're moving it around across
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: their vocal cords. And that's what makes like the ribbit
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: sound or the croaking or the trilling sound. And it's
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Um. And one of the reasons why they're
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: making those sounds, or at least one of the sounds,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: is they're attracting a mate right there talking to one another.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: They're saying, hey, what do you think? Yeah, And that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: sound can be everything from a croak to a ribbit
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: to like, there's this I don't know, there may be
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: more than one species, but there's this one. I've heard
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: this summer that sounds and I've heard people call the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: police because it sounds like a child that's in danger.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Can you do an impression of it? No, I wish
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I could. It's just super loud and it sounds like
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: a child that's hurt. It's like a screaming sound. Oh,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I've not heard of that one. Oh man, it's crazy sounding. Wow. Yeah, Well,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I'll send you a link a bit, sure, there's a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: YouTube recording or something. It's like peacock's going, hell, it's
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: off putting in there, and still say that to this
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: day because of you, because we got a neighborhood peacock
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that I've talked about, so, Chuck. When frogs are making
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: these mating calls, right, yes, they're saying, hey, baby, how's
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: it going? Um? And the frog might come over, or
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the male frog might say, I like your look, I'm
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: gonna climb on top of you. How about that? And
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: there's actually because frogs are in a lot of cases
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: not not sexually dimorphic, like you can't visually tell the
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: difference between a male and a female frog of that species.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Apparently that extends not just to us humans, but to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: frogs as well, because there's a something called a release
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: call to where if male frog has mounted another male frog,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: the male frog that's been mounted, we'll have a release
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: call saying like I'm a dude, buddy, um, keep looking. Yeah.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Actually they've actually recorded that sound in uh nature. Oh yeah,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: And I think it's something like well wha, wha, wha,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: whoa right right, like you as a friend, so the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: frog will move on. It's funny that like they they
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: get confused just from looking as well, and that it
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: takes like a reactive process to handle that. You know. Yeah,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: it's called amplexus, which is the position that they're in. Yeah,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: that's the mounting position. Yeah, and the male literally gets
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: on the back and class the four legs around the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: lady frog's middle and they can stay there for days
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: like that however long. It's pretty much um, it's just
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: a sensual seduction basically just waiting for the female to
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: release her eggs and um. As far as reproduction goes,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and this is something that we all learned about when
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: we were little kids with frogs with the tadpoles where
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: we'll get into that, but the general rule of fun
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: with most is that they're all sexual reproducers, and all
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: frogs and toads will be hatched from an egg. Depending
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: on how they come out, there's big differences to like
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: most I don't even want to say most. I saw
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: somewhere like half of frogs come out fully formed, just
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: super small, that's adorable, the all bet um. The other
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: say half come out as tadpoles. And that's the one
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that like every little kid knows about. It's it's frog
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: reproductive biology, right. Yeah, And depending on the species, they
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: can do crazy adaptive things, like there's one species that incubates,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: like the female frog clears out her belly and then
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and incubates the eggs and it's belly for the whole time,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and the frog is born out of her mouth. Essentially,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: she's like, go forth. Uh, there's another one where because
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: we always, you know, have been saying that moisture is
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: super important to their survival. Um, there are some that
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: if they're in very dry areas, the daddy frog, well
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's a daddy frogger is either one of them,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: it's the dad. From what I understand that the dad,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the dad will pee on the eggs, right to keep
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: them wet. That's the I think the strawberry poison dart
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: frog does that. And um, after they hatch into tabholes,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: the mom apparently carries them on her back two little
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: pools of water that are collected in like a plant, right,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and each one gets its own little pool of water
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and that cute. Yeah, And I didn't know this, but
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: they can hatch and grow in like a regular full
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: body of water like a ake. But I think the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: process is just a lot slower there than it is
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: the temporary pool. Yeah, so like like a rain pool
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: or something like that, um, or just just a huge
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: puddle that's developed. It's going to be much faster because
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: they have less time to work with. Right, Yeah, I
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: couldn't figure it out. Is that the deal? Yeah, that's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: what I understand. So, um, they're there, um, developmental processes accelerated.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: But again there's you can't just say this is how
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: it is for all frogs. There's differences with all of them. Um.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: But for the most part, ones that are hatched from
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: eggs as tadpoles will start to eat. And again, some
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: are born with teeth which I can't even imagine how
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: small those teeth are. Um, and might be herbivores or
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: they might be omnivores. Others are herbivores. But frogs grow
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: up to be carnivores I believe, right, But they start
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: out as tadpoles. Is vegetarians in a lot of cases. Yeah,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: so they start eating a bit. The metaphor morphosis is
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: taking shape. Um. As we all saw in on the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: film strip in elementary school, little back legs start to grow. Uh,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: their little internal organs start to change. They get their
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: tiny little lungs, they get their little digestive system going,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and then that tail just shrinks and shrinks and eventually
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: just is absorbed into the body. Yeah. And as their
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: tail is shrinking, their front legs are growing and their
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: digestive system is altering itself from in plant based diet
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to a meat based diet. And then they leave land.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: And when they leave land, they're considered a froglet I guess,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: until their tail fully goes away, and then they're a
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: frog and they say rip it, they do, and then
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: they say, I'm hungry. I want to eat some insects,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and I want to try to avoid be eaten by
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: something bigger than me. Yeah, So they eat a really
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: surprising range of things. They'll eat insects obviously, flying insects, mosquitoes, flies, grasshoppers.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: They also eat worms, snakes, mice, baby turtles, other frogs.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Delete it all. They'll cannibalize one or another, which, if
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: you think you know it's so wrong, cannibalism is just
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: so wrong. It's actually a pretty easy and low hanging
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: fruit check on like overpopulation, Like if the species police
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: is itself re polices its own population, that's actually pretty smart. Really,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: it's still dreadful, Like over there head had twenty four
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: little baby froglets. I'm kind of hungry. Yeah, and some
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: apparently some tadpoles, the ones that will eat meat or
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: um vegetable vegetation bill eat other tadpoles too. Oh really
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: that young? Yeah man, I know they started. I'm young,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: so um, I just talked about avoid being eaten. Their
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: frogs are very famous for having some pretty advanced defense mechanisms. Um.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of times it's just all show, like they'll
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: be super brightly colored or the the fore ied frong
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the uh well, I was gonna say the scientific name,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: but why bother right? I practiced, Okay, the physillamous netterary
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: very nice. It sounded much better when I practiced, well,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: because what you do is you say it like that
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: once and then the second time you say it just
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: like it's in your vocabulary four or five times. There
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you go. Yeah, but you have to do it like
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: right in a row, you know what I mean, Like
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: say it again physilamous neterary. I think you just do
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: it with a little pizzazuh So anyway, that's the forrid frog,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and that's the dude that has spots on its back
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: that look like eyes near the back legs and to
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a predator. They're like, I don't like the looks of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: that thing, even though it's just for show. Yeah, if
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: which is kind of weird because if you look at it,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: it just looks like a frog going one or or
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: the other. I don't know what's intimidating about. Maybe that's
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: what's scary, Like, I don't know which way that dude's
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: gonna jump. I guess so he's going forward, he's going backward. Um,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of frogs will use color, Like I was like,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: what is the the evolutionary adaptation of bright bright colors
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: for frogs? It doesn't make any sense. Apparently they do
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: that to basically advertise to predators, Hey man, I'm super poisonous.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: You do not want to eat me. Yeah, it could
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: be a fluke or fake. I mean I've heard enough
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: about that though that if I was traveling in like
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: the Amazon and I saw a bright blue frog, I
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: wouldn't kiss that guy. No, that's a poison dart tree frog. Well,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: that's the other thing I was talking about the show.
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of this for show, but a
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: lot of it isn't. Some frogs have very highly concentrated
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: toxins that like the poison dart frog, like you said,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and and those dudes are it can be harmful to
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the touch to a human. Yeah, you can absorb that
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that toxin through your skin. Uh. And apparently they make
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: this toxin by collecting it from ants that they eat.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: They eat like poisonous ants, and the the toxic alkaloids
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: from the ants own toxin accumulates in these storage glands
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: in the frog but doesn't affect the frog. But brother,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: it's gonna affect you. Yeah. So even that same if
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: you have a poisoned dart frog that's been raised in
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: captivity and not fed those ants, I think it might
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: have a little toxicity, but nothing like the real deal.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's how they found out there. Like, oh
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense. Why would
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: they become less toxic? And I've been looking this guy
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: in the cage. It's nothing born right, So let's let's
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: take a break, our last break, chuck, and then we're
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: going to come back because we have more to say. Okay, dude,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: so we talked um briefly about you mentioned how they
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: need water, like water is essential the frogs throughout their
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: their life process. Right. This is one of the things
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: that makes them really fragile um. In some cases, they're
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: fragile because there are places where they may run out
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: of water. Their wire supply might dry up, and that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: would be really bad for a frog. Beca is not
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: only does a frog get a lot of its water
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: um through its skin, uh, it gets some of its
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: oxygen and does carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange in large
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: part through its skin as well. Right, So it for
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: all of this stuff to happen, it needs to be
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: wet um, which means that if the water that they're
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: coming in contact with, since they're so permeable and they
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: take in that water so readily, if there's stuff present
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: in the water like toxins or pollution or something like that,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: it's going to affect the frogs as well. And since
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: the frog species are fairly fragile um as far as
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: as species go, they're kind of like the glass Joe
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: of the Animal Kingdom. Remember him from Mike Tyson's punch Out,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: The first Guy You'd Fight? I never played that? What
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I never played? Punch Out? You never did? Man, that
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: was a great game. I'm gonna I'm not gonna do
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: my patented thing. What which is I can't believe you
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: never played that? Yeah, I don't think I had that system.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: What system was that on the original Nintendo? Yeah, I
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: never owned one. I had various roommates with those, so
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I was sort of subject to whatever games they liked.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I never played Zelda either, you know, I was never
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: into Zelda either. I like Metroid, though, I don't think
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: I played that. All right. We played a lot of
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Super Mario Brothers. So yeah, that was so good. Yeah, um,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: well Glass Joe. Yeah, that's right. So so that's what
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: frogs are. They're basically like a really fragile group to
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: begin with, but if you start contributing to their demise
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: through pollution and stuff, that's gonna pick up much more rapidly.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: And we're starting to see that, right, Yeah. I mean
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: that's I often rant about not using chemicals in my yard,
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and that's it's not just because I have dogs, but
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: it's you know, runoff from that stuff affects everything around
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: my house. And that's just on a small level. Yeah,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you see it in a large scale with you know,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: huge farms that use pesticides and insecticides, and that affects
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the local ecosystem as a whole. That's right, and it
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: kind of gets across. If you have like those sewers
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: where they stencil spray paint like a fish or something
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: that says goes to to wetlands or a stream or
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: something like that. I think that's really effective. I think
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: they should put that on all sewers basically. Yeah, or
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: maybe even a sign so you don't have to be
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: walking over it to see it. Yeah, there you go,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: like when you're driving by, or just make it common knowledge.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I think people know that, but they need reminders. Yeah,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: I think they need too. So that's one threat to
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: frogs because of man. Another one is well, people eating
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and hunting frogs to eat. Yep, they try and raise
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: them on farms, but uh, it's not the easiest thing
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: to have a frog farm. Apparently now they'll hop out
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of there. So hunting and capturing frogs to put on
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: the menu in some parts of the world's a very
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: big so they're in steep decline in those places. Have
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: you ever eaten frogs? I have had frog legs before.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It's been a long time and it won't happen again.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: I um used to as a kid go to this
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: dinner theater in I think Grand Rapids, Michigan is where
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: it was, and on the buffet they always had frog's legs,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: and I would eat piles of frogs legs as like
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a seven eight year old kid. It was really crazy
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: how adventurous I was. Right, I would do anything to
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: have a videotape of that. And um, like I got
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: fat off a frog's legs. That's tough to do. So
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: I I wonder now if I would like them. But
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: that's not to be because one of you May's greatest
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: fears in the world is being anywhere near a frog.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: One of her top phobias as frogs, just in general,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: everything about frogs. So there's zero chance. There's actually a
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: negative chance that I will ever be able to eat
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: a frog leg again, at least with her around. I'll
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: have to fly up to Grand Rapids myself. That'll be
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: your big dirty marital secret. Right where have you been?
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: But we have in Detroit. So the frogs, that's I've
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: heard of that before. I think, Uh, you haven't, No,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I have. I mean, I'm sure every animal out there
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: has someone who's afraid of it. Sure, but um, yeah,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that frogs I'm like, it's good to know. Yeah,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Like you mean, what do you think of this? Like,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I know not to do that. That's good if you chuck,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I wish I thought of that before I've done it. Um.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: One of the other big threats to frogs is global warming. Um.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: They are ectothermic animals, so they that means they rely
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: on the environment to control their body temperature. They don't
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: have the internal regulation. So if it's hot outside, the
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: frog gets hot, and um, if it's cold, they get cold.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: In case of in the case of the wood frog,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: they live north of the Arctic Circle and they can
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: free This is remarkable. They can freeze up to its
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: body in the wintertime to protect itself from damage, and
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: then they thaw themselves out again in the spring. But
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: that didn't help you if if it's too hot, well
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: that's when you amelia estivate when it's too hot. But
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: this is like, this is just a few species that
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: are capable of of hibernating and estivating like this. For
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: the most part, frogs need because their ectothermic, they need
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: a pretty stable temperature. And from what I saw, um
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: even worse than high temperatures for frogs. That's associated with
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: um global warming are temperature swings, like big swings and
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: temperature are really hard on frog populations, and that they
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: think that's one reason why frogs have been declining. But
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: from that one study that really established like there two
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: species that we've lost since the seventies. The guy who
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: lead the sellers like, I can't say why. I have
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: no idea. He's like, it's probably this is probably, this
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: is probably this, it's all these different things. But he
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: said the thing that really made him nervous was that
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: it was happening all over the world, but he didn't
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: think it was just climate change or just global warming
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: that was doing it. One of the other things that
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: frog's face that they know all about but are having
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: a tough time dealing with is a kind of fungus
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: called kittred or kitrid which one did you come up with?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Pronunciation kitrid? But it could be either I guess the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: h y trid. Uh. And that's the fungus that feeds
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: on carratin, which we've talked about before. That's um didn't
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: That is what's in our fingernails, yeah, or your hair. Yeah.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Basically makes skin tough and sturdy, uh, And little tadpoles
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: just have a little bit of that stuff around their mouths.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: But when they grow the parts that are most often
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: in contact with the ground like that, they're little cute,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: little soft bellies. Or the soles of their feet, they're
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: delicious feet. Now, can just think of you me just
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: like or skin crawling, like listening to this thing. Yeah,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I should have should have told
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: everybody that one that's like her Achilles heel. Yeah. Uh
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: So as this stuff comes in contact with the ground more,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: they um, they get that build up to where just
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: they need tougher skin down there. Yeah. So, and that's
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that's where this fungus will take root, right because that
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: tougher skin is made of keratin. Right, So since the
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: fungus feeds on it, they're like, oh, well, it's gonna
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: kill a frog. But they don't actually know the mechanism
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: by which the frog dies from the kite kitrid. So
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: what you said, that's what I said. They think that
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: possibly it is that the fungus releases toxin, maybe that
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the frog takes in through its skin, or that it
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: inhibits that gas exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide on
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: the frog's skin. But those are just a couple of
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: hypotheses there there. They still have no idea. They just
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: know it's killing frogs, and it's killing them fast. And
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the reason why it's spreading so well, they've traced it
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: back to the African clawed toad. Yeah, which it doesn't
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: have a poor effect on them, but they can spread
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: it to other frogs and it's those have become an
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: invasive species in a lot of areas. Yeah, because their
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: pets and people release frogs as pets when they're no
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: longer puppies, which is something you should not do. No, no, no, no,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: They're like, that's the frogs take over really really quickly.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Remember we UM did an episode and will Toads Give
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: You Warts? Uh, and we talked about the cane toad
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and how it's just taken over Australia. Um frog populations,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: as fragile as they are, can also as an invasive species.
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: Just boom right. Yeah. They also were ubiquitous because for decades,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: starting in ninety, they were the fastest way to tell
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: if you were pregnant. Oh, cane toads. No, uh, the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: African claude toad. Did you know about that? I don't think, so, oh, well,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: a lot on me. You're ready. Back in the day,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: if you were a woman who wanted to know you're pregnant,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: you would go to your doctor. Your doctor would take
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: a urine sample and send it off, and at a
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: lab they would take a sample of your urine injected
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: into a rabbit, and then they would kill the rabbit,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: cut the rabbit open, and inspect it's ovaries to see
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: if it had reacted to a hormone that shows up
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: only in pregnant women, human choreonic gonata trope in right, Yeah,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: which I've I've heard of that, Okay, So I guess
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: it would be hCG is present in the urine of
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: pregnant women, and you can tell very early on if
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: a woman is pregnant from the presence of it. But
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: they had the most roundabout way of all time to
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: find out to detect the presence of it. Well, enter
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: the African Claude toad, where this researcher with the name
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: of get this Lancelot hog bent thought to inject a
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: toad with it, and the toad stays alive, just releases
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: eggs or sperm. If there is hcd G present in
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: the woman's urine, So that for decades, Chuck was how
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: you would tell if you were pregnant. They would somebody
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: in a lab somewhere would inject your urine into a
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: frog to see if they released sperm or eggs. Crazy,
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and then they'd say, mozle top, Yeah, that is nuts. Uh.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the kane toade in Australia, which we did
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: talk about a little bit, but they there's a great documentary,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: very classic documentary from the late eighties I think was
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: it seventies, I think it's eighties about the cane toad uh.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: One of the all time classic docs. If you haven't seen,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: you should check that out. But cane toads are very
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: famously brought over in nine uh. And this it just
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: seems like it always goes this way when someone says, hey,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: let's bring in this to handle this, uh, even though
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: nature hasn't, it always goes wrong. It seems like. So
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: they brought these cane toads over to uh take care
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of the scare of beetle. But then once they got
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: over here, they were the scarabs are eating the sugar
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: cane crops um. They realized that these big fat cane
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: toads couldn't jump high enough to get to the beatles
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: for the most part, and so they all of a sudden,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: we're just there and they reproduce like bunny rabbits, and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: so before you know it, Australia very famously you had
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: a cane toad problem, and I think still does right.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it's big. They were advancing towards Sydney
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: or Perth or some large city, um, just ruining crop
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: land and on the way. Yeah, they have a huge
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: problem still as far as I know, I just saw
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: one recent thing. I don't know if it's still the case,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: but I think they found some ant that will kill
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: these cane toads. They're called meat ants. It sounds like
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: something of a horror movie. Yeah, that does sound pretty bad.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: But I don't know if that's still the case. But
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: I do know that Australia has spent a lot of
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: money over the years trying to control the cane toads. Yeah, um,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: and yeah, as far as I know, they still have
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: a huge problem with it. Maybe, Josh, we will see
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: some In two thousand eighteen when we fingers Crossed visit
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Australia to do live shows that will be great. We're
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: gonna go catch a couple and at least get a
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: couple out of Australia's hair while we're there. Yeah, so
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: that that is sort of a pre announcement. Hopefully we're
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: gonna be hitting Australia New Zealand next year. Oh is
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: that what you were doing? Yeah? If everything goes well,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that is the plan. Okay, yeah, No, I'm pretty psyched
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: about it. I just have to find some good pills
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: to get me through that flight. So I'll tell you
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: what you could do for the flight back. You could
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: take one of those cane toads, squeeze it and then
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: lick the secretions. Yeah. So that's a real thing. If
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: you've heard, hey we're licking frogs, uh, make me hallucinate.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: That is actually a real thing. And there are um
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: in the eighties the Australian government and this doesn't just
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: happen Australia. Uh, they have outlawed kane toad secretion under
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: the Drug Misuse Act. And there's another chemical called buphot
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: nine that is in the US a controlled substance. Yeah,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: from the Colorado River toad. And you can own a
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: Colorado River toad. But buddy you better not lick it
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: because that is illegal. Yes, so what do you do?
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: You um, squeeze the paratoid glands behind the ear drums.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: There'll be an oozy, milky substance that leaks out, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: then you can either lick it right there or you
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: can collect it, dry it, and smoke it. And here's
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: the thing, like, don't do that. No, do not do that,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: not just because it's illegal it's a controlled substance, but
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: because you have no idea how toxic that that chemical is,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: how potent it is. You can't you can't control the dosage,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: and so if you overdose you you will probably suffer
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: cardiac arrest and die. And there's no way for you
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: to know whether you're going to trip because this stuff
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: has like a UM. It's from the same family as
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: d M t die methyl lethamine at atlantamine. Man practice
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: that one too, but d M t UM it's in
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the same family. So it will either make you trip
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: or it will kill you. And there's no way for
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: you to tell ahead of time. So there's really no
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: reason whatsoever for you to be licking toads. Your uncle
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Josh and your uncle Chuck are telling you straight out,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: don't lick toads, agreed, And yet people have been doing
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: it since at the very least eleven fifty b C.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: They found archaeological evidence pointing to South American Indian tribes,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: uh looking frogs, the Colorado River toad and of course
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: it's in Colorado, right exactly. Like Yeah, man, I'm gonna
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: christen these new hiking boots by into these new sweet basques.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: All right, what else you got? I got nothing else?
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: That's frogs. That was a long one. Yeah, we haven't
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: done a good old fashioned animal episode in a long time.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I know I missed it. Um. Well, if you want
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: to know more about frogs and toads, ts, because there's
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: nothing more to know. But you can support Tracy V.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: Wilson by going and reading this article on how Stuff
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. You can also go check out her
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: work on Stuff you Missed in History Class that great podcast, agreed.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: And since I said stuff you missed in History class,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: the secondary follow up to the Satanas Satanist episode, and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: this will probably the last one when we read. Just
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: listen to your show on Anton Laveay and Satanism. Guys.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: It's a former leader of a secular interest group. I'm
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: embarrassed to say I've never heard of him until your show.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: It's hard to believe. Yeah, it is. I've always believed
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: that the best way to show how absurd religious endorsement
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: is is taking it to its logical conclusion. Although the
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Flying Spaghetti Monster demonstrates this through parity, I have no
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: idea there was a group who was demonstrating this through practice.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: I believe secularism is a good thing for everyone, including
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: my Christian friends. Although I think Satan is a dubious
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: hero to champion secularism for the mere reason of the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: knee jerk reaction to the name Satan. I am not
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: at all opposed to the Church of Satan's idea to
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: hold up a mirror to those working on religious establishment.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: I want to say thank you for faithfully reporting on
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: people like Satanists. It's try to argue the position when
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: you stand to gain something from your position. You guys
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: have the advantage of reaching people while their guard is down,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: and you used it to challenge their views on something
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: as unequivocally evil sounding and Satanist. I very well made
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: become a secret Satanist after your podcast Take the Plunge
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: with Me, chuck uh And that is from Travis Romero.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Well thanks a lot, Travis. If you want to get
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: in touch with us like Travis did, you can tweet
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast or join
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: You can send us an email the Stuff podcast at
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: is that how stuff Works dot com