It ain’t easy…, photo by stevedontsurf.
Steven writes that: Actually, on this day, it seemed pretty easy being green. This guy was eating fly after fly as I snapped away. Must’ve had 5-6 flies in about as many minutes. He looked like lack of food was not an issue. Check it out background big and in his slideshow.
Coincidentally, I came across an article this morning about a nasty fungus called chytrid that has been the culprit of 94 out of 122 frog extinctions since 1980 and that can also affect some toads and salamanders. Brian Gratwicke of the Smithsonian’s National Zoo says:
“There’s frogs all around the world being affected. There’s amphibians that have gone extinct in Australia, in the Caribbean, in North America, in South America, in Central America.”
…There is also a real cost to humans from the frog extinctions. Frogs’ skins are anti-microbial factories. They’ve produced compounds that kill superbugs in hospitals.
“There’s a species of frog in Australia that produces a chemical called caerin, which blocks HIV transmission to T-cells,” Gratwicke says. “The untapped resources of our amphibian biodiversity are virtually unknown.”
Click through to read much more and also check out the Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor) on Michigan in Pictures.
Michigan in Pictures 