Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
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Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#2I now know why I require so much sugar and sweets: I am a wood frog preparing for hibernation!
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#3There are no pictures of the frogs in this article. For pictures (of thawed and frozen frogs) you can see: https://shakerlakes.org/frozen-frogs/
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#4Fascinating phenomena, thanks a lot for sharing!
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#5cant even call that hibernation. There are other knock on advantages to bieng frozen solid, it would slow down and even kill a lot of infectious microbes.It may convey a certain life extension benifit.
And threre is not much behavioral adaptation needed,frog gets chilly, snuggles under a leaf,freezes solid, gets defrosted 8 months later and wakes up hungry and horny, not bad.
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#6Evolutionarily, amphibians are somewhat simpler than mammals, they're smaller than a lot of mammals and they don't live as long, so I suspect some of this is simply that "things that aren't there". They wouldn't have as many problems with advanced glycation end products because the temperature is so low. There's at least one other ice survival strategy: antifreeze proteins. The fir tree and a variety of arctic fish have these: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6691018/.
In all cases, I still don't understand how the membrane potentials are maintained or re-constructed in the thawing phase: any pointers?
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#7Curious to how long the frozen structure can "survive". I wonder if it's a good idea to freeze one such frog and thaw it centuries later (an amphibian time-traveler!)
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#8cant even call that hibernation. There are other knock on advantages to bieng frozen solid, it would slow down and even kill a lot of infectious microbes.It may convey a certain life extension benifit. And threre is not much behavioral adaptation needed,frog gets chilly, snuggles under a leaf,freezes solid, gets defrosted 8 months later and wakes up hungry and horny, not bad.
> it would slow down and even kill a lot of infectious microbes
I wouldn't count on it killing them. The cryoprotectants in the frog's body don't discriminate; they'll protect foreign bacteria just as well as the frog's cells.
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#9Not one photo of said frog.
Look, new rule: you write an article about frogs, you include a photo.
Re: Biological Miracle – Wood Frog
#10There are no pictures of the frogs in this article. For pictures (of thawed and frozen frogs) you can see: https://shakerlakes.org/frozen-frogs/
From the linked video: timelapse of the thawing process: https://youtu.be/pLPeehsXAr4?t=176