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Herpetologists from the California Academy of Sciences and University of Texas at El Paso discovered a single specimen of the Bururi long-fingered frog (Cardioglossa cyaneospila) during a research expedition to Burundi in December 2011. The frog was last seen by scientists in 1949 and was feared to be extinct after decades of turmoil in the tiny East African nation. For biologists studying the evolution and distribution of life in Africa, Burundi sits at an intriguing geographic crossroads since it borders the vast Congo River Basin, the Great Rift Valley, and the world's second largest freshwater lake, Lake Tanganyika. Many of...

Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Vs3u53eDgQ

Courtesy of the American Chemical Society Some of the nastiest smelling creatures on Earth have skin that produces the greatest known variety of anti-bacterial substances that hold promise for becoming new weapons in the battle against antibiotic-resistant infections, scientists are reporting. Their research on amphibians so smelly (like rotten fish, for instance) that scientists term them “odorous frogs” appears in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research and is titled  “Extremely Abundant Antimicrobial Peptides Existed in the Skins of Nine Kinds of Chinese Odorous Frogs.” Yun Zhang, Wen-Hui Lee and Xinwang Yang explain that scientists long have recognized frogs’ skin as...

In 2007, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was packing up to become the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Jean Quatremer, a writer for the French paper Libération wrote on his blog that "Strauss-Kahn's only real problem is his relationship to women. Too heavy … it borderlines harassment," reports the UK’s Guardian. The Guardian says that “many politicians privately wonder[ed]” then “how he would cope in a puritan U.S. which frowns upon sexual advances.”He may not have coped at all. He may have snapped. I hope that I’m wrong about it, but fear that I’m not. Strauss-Khan, a 62-year old French...

Emerging from a partially frozen pond more than 6,000 feet high in the Alps, European common frogs (Rana temporaria) set out to find mates and begin breeding activities. These frogs have adapted to a wide variety of conditions, increasing their range over most of Europe. Here on the Massif de Beaufort in the French region of Savoy, ice may not thaw until June, leaving only a brief window of warm weather for females to lay eggs and tadpoles to metamorphose into juveniles, known as froglets. Cold-climate frogs grow more slowly than their relatives in temperate areas, but live longer (12...

A newfound, pea-size frog, Microhyla nepenthicola, sits on the tip of a pencil. One of the smallest frogs in the world, the species was spotted inside and around pitcher plants in Malaysian rain forests on the island of Borneo

Let's all read the immigration law, shall we? (It's only 10 pages)

Amphibians may be a love 'em and leave 'em class, but one frog species defies the norm, scientists have found. A trio of biologists, including two from East Carolina University, have discovered in Peru the first confirmed species of monogamous amphibian, Ranitomeya imitator, better known as the mimic poison frog -- a finding that provides groundbreaking insight into the ecological factors that influence mating behavior. The scientists' work, which is to be published in the April issue of The American Naturalist, may be the most solid evidence yet that monogamy can have a single ecological cause. "We were able to...

The first monogamous amphibian has been discovered living in the rainforest of South America. Genetic tests have revealed that male and females of one species of Peruvian poison frog remain utterly faithful. More surprising is the discovery that just one thing - the size of the pools of water in which they lay their tadpoles - prevents the frogs straying. That constitutes the best evidence yet documented that monogamy can have a single cause, say scientists. Details of the frog's sex life is to be published in the journal The American Naturalist. These frogs are truly devoted to their offspring,...

> Boulder County's bomb squad responded to the Peak to Peak Charter School after an employee there called at about 7:15 a.m. Wednesday to report the unattended bag. Authorities used a robot with movable arms and a camera to investigate the bag and then an officer inspected it to make sure it was safe. >

ORMOND BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration says a test shows that either a frog or a toad was in a Florida man's soda can, but it's not clear how it got there

A frog has been snapped riding on top of a fish. The crafty creature was caught surfing on the head of the bright yellow Koi carp in a stunned couple's pond in their back garden. Amazingly Terry and Margaret Huggins said they watched the fun-loving frog hitch a ride on the super-cool carp for 30 minutes before it hopped off at 7am one morning. Advertisement - article continues below » Quick-thinking Mr Huggins, 76, of Warboys, Cambs, grabbed his camera and took pictures of the incredible natural double act. Terry, of Warboys, near Huntingdon, Cambs, said: "I've never seen anything...

A FROG that constantly changes colour is being worshipped as a GOD in India. Hundreds of curious followers flock to Reji Kumar’s home every day to pray and ask for miracles. Now one of the country’s top zoologists plans to study the rainbow frog. But Reji, 35, who keeps the creature in a glass bottle after finding it while out watering plants, is afraid it might CROAK first. He said: “My one problem is that this frog does not appear to eat. I keep trying to feed it but it doesn’t eat anything. I don’t know what else to give...

The Amazon basin is well known for its wide variety of species, but the rainforest might owe some credit to the mountains as a source for that rich diversity. A new study found that populations of poison frogs made their way from the Andes to the Amazon about a dozen times over the last 10 million years. Scientists suspect that the mountains have long been supplying the jungle with other species of plants and animals, too.

I'll start with frogs, and a turtle. Swamp Archives, 2006, with the little Olympus C2100UZ, 9 years old now, still shooting, only 2MP but they are great MPs! JimRob may want us to limit this archive thing, it's his den. I reckon I could post pics for several years if I start digging. These have degraded slightly, moving jpg files around isn't a good plan. FLORIDA BRONZE FROG SOUTHERN LEOPARD FROG RED EARED SLIDER GREEN TREEFROG

BOLZANO, Italy— Italian politician Franz Pahl revealed today that Pope Benedict XVI has criticized Martin Kippenberger's controversial sculpture of a crucified frog, ANSA reports. The pope wrote to Pahl in a letter on August 7, saying the artwork "has injured the religious feeling of many people who see in the cross the symbol of the love of God and of our salvation which deserves recognition and religious devotion." Benedict was vacationing in Bressanone, a town near Bolzano, and discussed the work with local bishop Wilhelm Egger. Kippenberger's sculpture has sparked controversy since its installation in the Museum of Modern and...

Froggie, the marble-eating Albino African Claw Frog, is home after recovering from innovative stomach surgery that allowed Dr. James Askew to remove three offending large glass beads - one clear, one turquoise, one blue. Admittedly, that's not normal frog food, but she was hungry. Vela Taconi thought Froggie was getting fat, so she cut back on "his" food. "His" is a key word because everyone thought the white aquatic frog was male. Wrong. --- SNIP ---- "I can't believe I've been so upset over a frog," Taconi admitted Thursday when the family came to retrieve Froggie. "But he, I...

PALM BAY, Fla. -- A Palm Bay woman claims her fast-food lunch included the head and front half of a frog and she snapped a cell phone photo to prove it. Michelle Arndt, 32, told Local 6 News partner Florida Today that she ordered a salad with fried chicken strips and found the frog after eating about half of the salad. Local 6 and Florida Today have not named the restaurant where the salad was purchased. "I think it's totally disgusting," Arndt said. "Where is the other half of the frog?" Arndt said a manager took the salad and her...

Giant prehistoric frog hints at ancient land link 22:00 18 February 2008 NewScientist.com news service Rowan Hooper An artist's impression of Beelzebufo shows it facing a modern-day Mantidactylus guttulatus, the largest living Malagasy frog (Image: Luci Betti-Nash) The discovery of a giant frog fossil has opened a rift among researchers over when an ancient land bridge closed. Discovery of the fossil in Madagascar supports the controversial view that South America and Madagascar were linked until 80 million years ago - far more recently than previously thought. The frog, dubbed Beelzebufo, resembles the family of horned toads that are now unique...

Want a ride? Hop on my Harley Davidson Chonburi According to the nursery rhyme, when froggie goes a-courtin' he takes a sword and pistol by his side. This frog, though, prefers to travel unarmed on a Harley-Davidson. Nong Oui, a black-spotted frog, also likes to show off her balancing skills and ride a toy dumper truck. The frog was found by Tongsai Bamroongtai, 52. “I looked her straight in the eye and knew I could communicate with her,” she said. “She can strike a pose just about anywhere.” Nong Oui first became renowned in Thailand, where she lives, for...

New Zealand scientists have found what appears to be a cure for the disease that is responsible for wiping out many of the world's frog populations. Chloramphenicol, currently used as an eye ointment for humans, may be a lifesaver for the amphibians, they say. The researchers found frogs bathed in the solution became resistant to the killer disease, chytridiomycosis. The fungal disease has been blamed for the extinction of one-third of the 120 species lost since 1980. Fearful that chytridiomycosis might wipe out New Zealand's critically endangered Archey's frog (Leiopelma archeyi), the researchers have been hunting for a compound that...

INVESTIGATING judges filed preliminary charges yesterday against former prime minister Dominique de Villepin for his suspected role in a smear campaign aimed at Nicolas Sarkozy before he was president. The preliminary charges were for "complicity in slanderous denunciations", Mr de Villepin's lawyer, Luc Brossollet, said. The case stems from an alleged attempt in 2003-2004 to discredit Mr Sarkozy, who was a government minister at the time and a political rival of Mr Villepin within their conservative UMP party. Mr Villepin said he had done nothing wrong. "At no moment did I take part in any political manoeuvring," he said after...

You don't know what could be down there, sometimes. Sometimes you do know, because some people won't flush a toilet -- sometimes three or four people in a row, apparently. There's no doubt what's down there then. But that's another problem. The problem here is that you never know what else might turn up under a toilet seat: Spiders, snakes, wasps, scorpions, possibly even tarantulas, which would come under "spiders" if they weren't as big as rats, which by the way also turn up in toilets. I've heard such rat tales. And I've heard a snake tale, too -- about...

One giant leap for frogkind BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published June 8, 1997.) Get ready to dance naked in the streets, because scientists have finally done something that humanity has long dreamed about, but most of us thought would never happen within our lifetimes. That's right: They have levitated a frog. I swear I am not making this up. According to an Associated Press article sent in by a number of alert readers, British and Dutch scientists ''have succeeded in floating a frog in air.'' They did this by using magnetism, which, as you...

Source: Penn State Date: June 7, 2007 Caribbean Frogs Started With A Single, Ancient Voyage On A Raft From South America Science Daily — Nearly all of the 162 land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands, including the coqui frogs of Puerto Rico, originated from a single frog species that rafted on a sea voyage from South America about 30-to-50-million years ago, according to DNA-sequence analyses led by a research group at Penn State, which will be published in the 12 June 2007 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and posted in the journal's online early edition...

LIMA, Peru — Carmen Gonzalez plucks one of the 50 frogs from the aquarium at her bus stop restaurant, bangs it against tiles to kill it and then makes two incisions along its belly and peels off the skin as if husking corn. She's preparing frog juice, a beverage revered by some Andean cultures for having the power to cure asthma, bronchitis, sluggishness and a low sex drive. A drink of so-called "Peruvian Viagra" sells for about 90 cents. Gonzalez adds three ladles of hot, white bean broth, two generous spoonfuls of honey, raw aloe vera plant and several tablespoons...

(AP) Carmen Gonzalez plucks one of the 50 frogs from the aquarium at her bus stop restaurant, bangs it against tiles to kill it and then makes two incisions along its belly and peels off the skin as if husking corn.

MEXICO CITY (AP) - A Mexican researcher announced the rare find of a tiny tree frog completely preserved in amber on Wednesday that he estimates lived about 25 million years ago. The chunk of amber containing the 0.4-inch frog was uncovered by a miner in southern Chiapas states in 2005 and was bought by a private collector, who lent it to scientists for study. Only a few preserved frogs have been found in chunks of amber - a stone formed by ancient tree sap - mostly in the Dominican Republic. Like those, the frog found in Chiapas was of the...

Bove, who wants to run in France's presidential elections this year, was sentenced in 2005 for destroying a field of corn planted by U.S. seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. A Paris appeals court on Wednesday upheld a verdict and four-month jail sentence for French farmer and anti-globalization activist Jose Bove for destroying a field of genetically modified corn. Bove, who wants to run in France's presidential elections this year, was sentenced in 2005 for destroying a field of corn planted by U.S. seed company Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. The appeals court upheld that verdict, as well as sentences given...

PARIS, Jan. 31 — President Jacques Chirac has demanded that the United States sign both the Kyoto climate protocol and a future agreement that will take effect when the Kyoto accord runs out in 2012. He said that he welcomed last week’s State of the Union address in which President Bush described climate change as a “serious challenge” and acknowledged that a growing number of American politicians now favor emissions cuts. But he warned that if the United States did not sign the agreements, a carbon tax across Europe on imports from nations that have not signed the Kyoto treaty...

The frog plague: The inside story BY DAVE BARRY (This classic Dave Barry column was originally published on Nov. 7, 1999.) I'm wondering if any of you readers out there have noticed any suspicious behavior on the part of frogs. I ask because the ones at my house are definitely up to something. I live in South Florida, which has a hot, moist, armpit-like climate that is very favorable for life in general. Everything down here is either already alive or about to be. You could leave your toaster out on your lawn overnight, and by morning it would have...

But we Americans seem to have short memories. What else could explain the fact that we, generally speaking, so-often lambaste the French, calling them “cowards” for not allying themselves fully with us in every instance? We constantly throw in their faces the fact that we came to their rescue in World Wars I and II. And we’ve all heard the jokes: “Surplus French military rifles for sale. Never fired. Dropped once.”

French MP Calls for Military Action Against Israel A member of French Parliament has called for military action against Israel; the Dissident Frogman translates the call to arms posted on the web site of MP Jacques Myard: France must act: war on Israel! War in Lebanon – Has Israel lost her mind ? July 18th, 2006 Multiple direct testimonials from Lebanon are coming from French people residing in South Lebanon, and particularly Tyr, according to which the Israeli army is shooting at first sight on everything that moves, and notably on civilians. These French saw a helicopter kill a whole...

Mouse plays leap frog to escape Indian floods 17:06pm 30th June 2006 Reader comments (5) The mouse hitches a ride to safety There's nothing like a friend to help you out when times are tough... And this mouse found himself an unlikely ally when floodwaters devastated parts of northern India. He hitched a ride to safety on the back of a friendly frog which ferried him back to the bank when the mouse was swept into a swollen river near Lucknow, the state capital of Uttar Pradesh.

Analysis: France's attitude to terror London may be convulsed by controversy over police clampdowns on terror suspects, but Charles Bremner, The Times's Paris correspondent, says that the French police take a tougher line without the same public soul-searching "There is a big difference between the French and British policy and approach to terrorism. The DST, the equivalent to MI5 as well as the police intelligence, keep a very close watch on the housing estates where the majority of the Muslim population live. "Until last summer the French were very unhappy with what they saw was incompetence by the British. The...

Two frog species feared extinct have been rediscovered in Colombia, a boost for scientists battling to save rare amphibians threatened by a deadly disease. "These finds show there is still hope...a lot of these species were pretty much written off," Claude Gascon, a senior vice-president at Conservation International in Washington, told Reuters on Tuesday. Scientists have found the Santa Marta Harlequin frog and the San Lorenzo Harlequin frog, rated critically endangered after no sightings in 14 years, in a reserve in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta massif on Colombia's Caribbean coast. A fungal disease that smothers amphibians' skin is...

BANGKOK, Thailand - You want to find a new frog species? Head to the Southeast Asian nation of Laos. gcScientists working in conjunction with the New York-based World Conservation Society, or WCS, say they have discovered eight new species of frogs in the past two years. Among them is one where the male is half the size of the female and another which has a row of spines running down its belly. Their findings were reported earlier this year in Copeia, the journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, and in other peer-reviewed scientific journals since 2004. "Nobody...

The national debate over protecting fragile species comes to life here, where upscale housing developments push ever deeper into the rumpled blanket of grassy hills at the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay area The threatened California red-legged frog breeds in the weedy creeks hidden in the hollows of this landscape, part of more than 4 million acres that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in 2001 to designate as essential for the frog's recovery. In mid-April, following years of litigation and debate, the agency announced the designation of just 450,000 acres of critical habitat — 11 percent...

A CUSTOMER says she found a dead frog in a pre-mixed Caesar salad bought from a Brisbane supermarket. Julie Lumber, of Springfield in Brisbane's west, today said she was preparing for a barbecue when the green intruder dropped out of a Caesar salad "with the works" bought from Coles at the weekend. "I opened up the bag and the frog fell out on the side of the plate. "I just went 'oh my god' and then we had a laugh about it. "I couldn't stomach French food with the frogs legs and snails and I wasn't about to try it...

Comment Europe's contempt for other cultures can't be sustained A continent that inflicted colonial brutality all over the globe for 200 years has little claim to the superiority of its values Martin Jacques Friday February 17, 2006The Guardian Is the argument over the Danish cartoons really reducible to a matter of free speech? Even if we believe that free speech is a fundamental value, that does not give us carte blanche to say what we like in any context, regardless of consequence or effect. Respect for others, especially in an increasingly interdependent world, is a value of at least equal...

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - The mountain yellow-legged frog has survived for thousands of years in lakes and streams carved by glaciers, living up to nine months under snow and ice and then emerging to issue its raspy chorus across the Sierra Nevada range. But the frog's call is going silent as a mysterious fungus pushes it toward extinction. "It's very dramatic," said Yosemite biologist Lara Rachowicz. "One year, you visit a lake and the population will seem fine. The next year you go back, you see a lot of dead frogs scattered along the bottom of the pond. In...

Scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere, members of the expedition said Tuesday.The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during its rapid survey of the Foja Mountains, an area in eastern Indonesia's Papua province with more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest, said Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the monthlong trip.Two Long-beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal, simply allowed scientists to pick them up and bring them back...

Is that why all those people died on 9-11?

THE history books say that after reaching Moscow in 1812, Napoleon's army was laid low by the Russian winter and then finished off by hunger, battle wounds and low morale as it straggled back to France. The truth, say scientists, is more intriguing but rather less poetic: the biggest destroyer of the Grande Armee was Pediculus humanus -- the human louse. A team led by Didier Raoult of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) examined the remains of Napoleon's soldiers who had been buried in a mass grave in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, 800km west of Moscow. Samples of...

Thought you might enjoy this. Engineers - Take One: To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. Engineers - Take Two: A pastor, a doctor and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, "What's with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes!" The doctor chimed in, "I don't know, but I've never seen such ineptitude!" The pastor said, "Hey, here comes the greens keeper. Let's have...

8,973 cars burnt 2,888 arrests 20 night of riots (From their sidebar) The French Senate is set to pass emergency laws a day after the lower house of parliament voted for a three-month extension. The laws allow local authorities to impose curfews, conduct house-to-house searches and ban public gatherings. Violence continued across France overnight but fewer cars were set on fire than during previous nights. Nationwide, 163 cars were burnt - almost down to the levels seen before the riots began last month.

Ed Alcock for The New York Times Semou Diouf, 50, has spoken French all his life and was educated in France but says he still feels like an outsider, despite living under a Constitution that is officially color blind. PARIS, Nov. 10 - Semou Diouf, holding a pipe in one hand and a cigarette in the other...(snip) "I was born in Senegal when it was part of France," he said before putting the pipe in his mouth. "I speak French, my wife is French and I was educated in France." The problem, he added after pulling the pipe out...

PARIS Nov 11, 2005 — Police tightened security in central Paris on Friday with riot forces and bomb squads along the Champs-Elysees, and angry residents of riot-torn suburbs staged a sit-in Friday near the Eiffel Tower, calling for an end to more than two weeks of arson and vandalism across France. The moves came as the wave of violence that spread outward from Paris's impoverished outlying neighborhoods appeared to be calming in other French cities but remained persistent in the capital. "Stop the Violence," read one banner draped on the Wall of Peace near the Eiffel Tower. Some of the 200 demonstrators...

Rioting by Muslim youth in some 300 French cities and towns seems to be subsiding after two weeks and tougher law enforcement, which is certainly welcome news. The riots have shaken France, however, and the unrest was of such magnitude that it has become a moment of illumination, for French and Americans equally. In particular, some longstanding conceits about the superiority of the French social model have gone up in flames. This model emphasizes "solidarity" through high taxes, cossetted labor markets, subsidies to industry and farming, a "Ministry for Social Cohesion," powerful public-sector unions, an elaborate welfare state, and, inevitably,...

Just breaking on ap...PARIS (AP) -- A French police spokeswoman says eight officers have been suspended after a young man was beaten in a Paris suburb.