Have you ever seen a frog tumble after jumping? Have you ever seen a tiny orange frog? Have you ever seen the Pumpkin Toadlets, clumsiest frog ever?!
Pumpkin Toadlets, scientific name Brachycephalus, are small orange frogs, about the size of your thumbnail. These clumsy frogs must always do a few backflips before landing, and sometimes even land on their back!
“I’ve looked at a lot of frogs and these are the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” says Richard Essner, Jr., a zoologist. He works with vertebrates—animals with backbones—at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Essner and his crew are trying to figure out why these frogs land so weirdly. To learn more, they headed to Brazil.
These teeny frogs are so small that they are very hard to find. Most of the time, scientists listen for their high-pitched buzzy calls, then scoop up leaves in the area they heard the sound come from. This way, they might catch a few frogs.
When the scientists returned to the lab, they looked at high-speed videos of more than 100 tiny frog jumps. The scientists suggested that these frogs have a problem tracking their body motion. Essner says that if the frogs have trouble jumping in the air, they might also have a problem landing. This may be why, although these frogs do know how to jump, they mostly just crawl around on the ground.
Pumpkin Toadlets, scientific name Brachycephalus, are small orange frogs, about the size of your thumbnail. These clumsy frogs must always do a few backflips before landing, and sometimes even land on their back!
“I’ve looked at a lot of frogs and these are the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” says Richard Essner, Jr., a zoologist. He works with vertebrates—animals with backbones—at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Essner and his crew are trying to figure out why these frogs land so weirdly. To learn more, they headed to Brazil.
These teeny frogs are so small that they are very hard to find. Most of the time, scientists listen for their high-pitched buzzy calls, then scoop up leaves in the area they heard the sound come from. This way, they might catch a few frogs.
When the scientists returned to the lab, they looked at high-speed videos of more than 100 tiny frog jumps. The scientists suggested that these frogs have a problem tracking their body motion. Essner says that if the frogs have trouble jumping in the air, they might also have a problem landing. This may be why, although these frogs do know how to jump, they mostly just crawl around on the ground.
