Why can't these frogs jump?

Researchers used CT scans to figure out why these pumpkin toadlets are just no good at jumping. The inner ear system of these frogs is so tiny that they lose balance midair.

Fortunately their main survival tactic to avoid being eaten doesn’t involve high-speed getaways, but rather staying in one place and being as unappetizing or as inconspicuous as possible.

“They’re not jumping around a lot, and when they do, they’re probably not that worried about landing, because they’re doing it out of desperation,” study co-author Edward Stanley. “They get more benefits from being small than they lose from their inability to stick a landing.”

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A new study looked at this group of frogs that are already fascinating scientists.

Co-author Amber Singh stitched together hundreds of frog scans while working with the #oVertTCN project as an undergraduate student here at the University of Florida and discovered these pumpkin toadlets stand out as having the smallest vestibular system yet measured in any vertebrate organism.

Richard Essner Jr. of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville is lead author on the study. Additional co-authors include Rudá Pereira of the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil, David Blackburn of the Florida Museum of Natural History, and Mauricio Moura and Marcio Pie of the Federal University of Paraná and Mater Natura — the Institute of Environmental Studies.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation (grant DBI-1701714) and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville graduate school.

Video by Essner et al. (2022). Photo by Ribeiro et al. (2017) CC-BY-NC Music from the public domain.