Posted on 06/15/2022 1:33:08 PM PDT by American Number 181269513
The leap of a frog is a quintessential evolutionary feat. The critter’s girthy gams thrust from behind to springboard the body up and out; a pair of acrobatic arms stretch forward to seamlessly break the fall. The landing is “very precise, very controlled,” says Richard Essner, a biologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. One might expect that any frog worth its salt should be able to stick it. “And most frogs,” says Marcio Pie, a biologist at Edge Hill University, in the United Kingdom, “do.”
Then there is the poor pumpkin toadlet. Spanning roughly a centimeter from snout to bum—about the width of a Skittle—and outfitted with scrawny, toothpick limbs that just barely hold its bulbous body aloft, it is the dachshund of the amphibian world, about as aerodynamic as you might expect. When these little frogs jump, they leap spectacularly, their airborne bodies imbued with all hope. Then their bodies twist and invert, “tumbling, cartwheeling,” Essner told me, some somersaulting head over heels, others pirouetting in an almost rotisserie-esque spin. In their final descent, the toadlets sometimes reach for a handhold, but the effort is for naught. They crash to the ground, arms akimbo, landing not on their forelimbs with grace, but on their butt, their belly, their back, their head, in bouncing-beach-ball defeat. “They fall on their face all the time,” Pie told me, stifling a laugh. “It’s sad.” (He assured me that the fumbles don’t seem to hurt the frogs.)
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Good graphic illustration in your comment.
Spot on!
The toadlets are more graceful than Bidung.
Also, that’s a very well written ‘popular science’ article; much better than what I would expect from The Atlantic.
Don’t be frogist. Poor creature might identify as a fish...or a bee...or both.
According to the California Endangered Species Act, a frog is a fish. A bumblebee is also a fish.
Thus saith the All Powerful California State Legislature.
It’s sad but I laugh every time I see that.
Can't find it in the dictionary.
Hoppity hop.
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