Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.
Except--what if they didn't?
Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog.
Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage.
The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!
Monday, October 12, 2015
Scientists Resurrect Bonkers Extinct Frog That Gives Birth Through Its Mouth
It's been gone since 1983, but the Lazarus Project has brought it back to life.
Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.
Except--what if they didn't?
Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog.
Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage.
The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!
Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.
Except--what if they didn't?
Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog.
Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage.
The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!
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This is very interesting. I also believe it would be great if they could bring some extinct animals back. I also think this frog is pretty weird in how it gives birth to baby frogs.
ReplyDeleteI think the way this frog gives birth is really cool but also really weird. Ive never heard of something giving birth through their mouths like this. I agree with Randi, bringing some animals that are extinct back would be great, but not if they would still be effected in negative ways.
ReplyDeleteWell this very cool in my opinion. A frog that can give birth through its mouth is very interesting. The fact that this is some method of cloning is a very big step I would say scientifically. Now we have the first steps into bringing back he world's extinct animals from the past, especially ones that might help the earth right now. If we continue to make progress with this we might be able to succeed.
ReplyDeleteI think this is really weird and kind of gross. I would hate to watch that and I don't know why someone would want to hold a frog when that is happening. It's cool in a way but yeah I don't wanna watch that.
ReplyDeleteI think it is very fascinating that scientists can bring back extinct species. If this can happen to more than one species we could be able to save the bee population. I just hope they don't try to bring back dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteThis is so disgusting.. But at the same time cool. It is gross that they give birth through their mouth! But the idea of cloning an animal is so interesting. It's like having a twin, but in reality.. they are exactly you! There could be a down side in this if something was to go wrong during the cloning, they could create something mutant which will probably not end up being a good thing, from all the movies I've seen. I am interested to see where this goes though!
ReplyDeleteI think this is very interesting. Bringing animals from extinction would be very cool and an interesting thing to do. I think it is weird how the frog gives birth but it is also very cool. Its very weird that a baby frog crawls out their mouths and I think it'd be funny and also disgusting to see.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a really cool frog and also, a really good idea. If everything goes right, that is. If we could clone certain extinct species, we could learn so many new things and make new discoveries. I think certain animals shouldn't be brought back though. And I think scientists should be careful with the cloning, doing exactly right, because things could get dangerous from the slightest mistake.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of cloning a animal can be a great idea to bring back a species that has already gone extinct. But if the animal could have a negative affect on a habitat then it may not be a good idea. Also if the species has already been driving extinct by non-human factors then how will it be able to survive this time.
ReplyDeleteI think this is interesting. I have never seen anything that has gave birth through the mouth. I think it would be neat if scientists could bring back animals from extinction as long as they don't have a bad effect of human population.
ReplyDeleteI find this very interesting I wish every population was this way, Its cool to bring back extinct animals maybe one day we can bring back dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is very cool. It is weird that a frog has babies out of its mouth but it is still very cool. It would save labor pain. I agree with Kobe.
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ReplyDeleteI think that this article is very interesting. Bringing any animal back from extinction would be very cool and an amazing feat. I think it is odd that the frog gives birth instead of laying eggs in a pond.
This is very interesting. I think it is gross but cool and unique at the same time. It would be cool to be able to bring back extinct animals. I would like if we could bring back dinosaurs.
ReplyDeleteI find this interesting that they are trying to bring organisms back to life. I believe this is great but also unnatural because if its extinct it should stay that way because it could be dangerous or act differently then they did. This could also change the actual DNA or something else that could be very important.
ReplyDeleteThis seems strange to me, this idea of resurrection(not regarding Jesus). It seems impossible to do something like this, but alas it's been done. Even though I accept that this has been done, I don't really believe people should do this, there could be some serious consequences to doing this and I think once a species time has come let them stay dead, let them rest.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is a good idea, I think that whatever is gone should stay gone. It's like trying to bring someone back from dead-doing way too much, and it could cause side effects that we don't know about and it could be harmful to the people doing those expirements.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a very weird but interesting idea. It was kind of cool in a way that the frog could have the babies out of its mouth because that's not very common for animals to do. I think that its a great idea to bring back extinct animals, but I agree with Jared there could be consequences in doing this.
ReplyDeleteI think this is really cool. I've never seen anything give birth through its mouth. I think it is weird that it swallows its eggs and then when they hatch it come through its mouth but it is kinda cool in a way. I agree with Angel that it would save child birth.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen anything like this before. It's pretty weird, but cool at the same time. I think it would be interesting if they really could bring these frogs back to life, as long as there isn't any side effects.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that this frog was extinct and they brought it back to life is extremely cool. It they could do this to other animals that would be amazing. Also, I find it very interesting that this type of frog gives birth through its mouth. That is very clever.
ReplyDeleteI've never really heard or seen anything like this at all I find it quite strange. I don't think its a good idea to bring them back to life because I think once its dead it should just be pretty much it.
ReplyDeleteI think this is very interesting. The fact that the scientists were able to bring back an extinct species back is great and might be able to work on other animals as well. One thing to consider is that cloning is an exact process so scientists need to be careful with this process. I also find it interesting and cool that this particular frog gives birth through its mouth.
ReplyDeleteI think that cloning an organism to try to bring it back from extinction is a neat idea. But I also think that it could bring some negative effects with it. The new organism can spread a disease that hasn't been on Earth for years and destroy other populations. This cloning could also bring an organism back to life but with a deformation due to not having all the correct DNA. But I think we should try it.
ReplyDeleteTwo words: Jurassic World. Although its a little gross, giving birth through mouth is interesting. Maybe we can bring back the mammoths with their DNA sometime in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is awesome. Not only because of the frog birthing from its mouth but the fact that we can clone things again. If we can do this then we would never have to worry about running out of supplies from species. If all of them died then we could just clone them and so on and so forth. But along with this there comes a bad thing. Cloning would cause a huge disruption in the order of our world. Where would they live? What would they eat? Even though this is awesome would not encourage doing this.
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