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Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

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Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#41

Post by card_zero »

imglorp wrote: post #34

Aquatic turtles have another brumination (hibernation) strategy. Since they breathe air, yet may get trapped under the ice for months at at time, they lower their metabolism plus have adaptations such as scavenging some oxygen from the water via rectal tissues as well as other chemical activity involving glucose and calcium. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-secret-to-turtle-hi... https://wildlifeinwinter.com/…

That's a word I don't know (and neither do you): brumation, invented in 1965.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brumation

The verb ought to be brumate. But I guess the desire to pull it into line with hibernation is strong, this happens with lots of words. (Or was the influence from "rumination"?)

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#42

Post by pcthrowaway »

Now I'm wondering all kinds of things about their brain. Are they capable of forming memories, and would they retain those memories after a freeze/thaw cycle?

Effectively they're dead when they freeze. I'm assuming there's no brain activity.. Which means when they thaw they're being restored to life. I wonder if any other animals experience this

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#43

Post by card_zero »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #42

Now I'm wondering all kinds of things about their brain. Are they capable of forming memories, and would they retain those memories after a freeze/thaw cycle? Effectively they're dead when they freeze. I'm assuming there's no brain activity.. Which means when they thaw they're being restored to life. I wonder if any other animals experience this

Reading about them, it seems they migrate in winter (like half a mile uphill), but the adults always return to the same breeding pond in spring, so that information is stored somewhere.

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#45

Post by lIl-IIIl »

crazygringo wrote: post #35
redundantly wrote: post #24

> ...the wood frog’s liver produces large amounts of glucose that flushes into every cell in its body. This syrupy sugar solution prevents the cells from freezing... All natural, no preservatives added, sweetened frog popsicles! Yummy!

I'm not even joking about this -- since frog legs are a thing people eat (taste kinda like chicken), I'm now incredibly curious what this would taste like if you "caught" these in their frozen state and cooked them. Are we taking syrupy sweet meat? Or just a hint of it?

According to the video in https://shakerlakes.org/frozen-frogs, it's also full of urine. Not sure if any left after the cooking process.

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#46

Post by mawise »

furyofantares wrote: post #21
soco wrote: post #12

I really expected a wood(en) frog here, qualifying truly as a biological miracle. But the wood frogs are cool as well.

Oh god. This made me wonder, what is wood, anyway? And I've just come away much more confused. Bamboo is a grass and doesn't come from a tree. Palm wood comes from palm trees, except palm tree trunks are apparently a totally different type of structure than other tree trunks, sounds closer to Papyrus. No growth rings, a fiber type structure. Is Papyrus wood? Any plant matter above a certain density? I don't think tha…

It's worse than that. _Tree_ isn't even a well-defined thing.

> Trees are not a monophyletic taxonomic group but consist of a wide variety of plant species that have independently evolved a trunk and branches as a way to tower above other plants to compete for sunlight.[1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#47

Post by userbinator »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #42

Now I'm wondering all kinds of things about their brain. Are they capable of forming memories, and would they retain those memories after a freeze/thaw cycle? Effectively they're dead when they freeze. I'm assuming there's no brain activity.. Which means when they thaw they're being restored to life. I wonder if any other animals experience this

Hibernate and resume.

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#48

Post by Loughla »

imglorp wrote: post #34

Aquatic turtles have another brumination (hibernation) strategy. Since they breathe air, yet may get trapped under the ice for months at at time, they lower their metabolism plus have adaptations such as scavenging some oxygen from the water via rectal tissues as well as other chemical activity involving glucose and calcium. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/the-secret-to-turtle-hi... https://wildlifeinwinter.com/…

Our tortoise, even though he's in a very comfortable climate controlled indoor pen, tries to dig a hole every year to do the same.

He's not very smart but he tries hard.

Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog

#50

Post by GavinMcG »

tantalor wrote: post #49

> wood frogs spend the winter frozen > syrupy sugar solution prevents the cells from freezing So they don't freeze. This is click bait.

Why does it only count if the cells themselves freeze? Also, am I still allowed to play freeze tag, or do we need to rename that?
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