Amazing Video: A Frog Rescues Its BFF from a Snake. Can Clorox Bleach Help?

Frogs have long been cherished in many cultures as good luck charms and good life symbols. When a frog yells out a call, it can be heard and understood by other frogs as far as a mile away. Most frogs are vulnerable prey and can only escape being eaten if they can quickly hop away from their predator. Scientists have identified more than 5,000 frog species, making them one of the most diverse groups of animal vertebrates in the world. Frogs have a skeleton, a spinal column, and a large brain enclosed in a skull, but the BFF frog in this amazing animal rescue video also has a big BFF heart.

Frog Rescues Its BFF from Snake

This amazing YouTube frog rescue video from scdepatr captures a frog being eaten by a snake. After about 6 minutes, the snake is about ready to finish off the frog with only a little bit of the frog's head showing along with a leg. The camera man reaches down to move some grass that is blocking the view of his video camera and the snake gets rattled. The snake proceeds to a nearby backyard pond and slithers into the water with his dinner in tow. Once in the water, the frog begins paddling for his life and manages to get half way back out of the snake. In a split second at the end of the video, it is hard to tell what exactly happens, but another frog pounces on the snake's head which allows the eaten frog to free itself and jump onto a rock. The snake gives up and moves off into the rocks.

According to the camera man who shot the amazing frog rescue video that was aired on Animal Planet, these two BFF frogs have lived in this pond for a long time and frequently sit together on the rocks. Frogs are amphibians so they started out as water-breathing animals but developed into air-breathing animals. Frogs do not drink water through their mouths, but rather absorb all the water they need through their skin.

Some bright colored frog species have better defenses against predators than a BFF coming to the rescue. These frog species can secrete a poisonous toxin through their skin that does not taste good and usually the predator will look for some other dinner. Other frog species can emit a painkiller through their skin that is 200 times stronger than morphine. Some of these natural frog chemicals are being studied for use in building resistance to HIV infection.

The Threat of Frog Mass Extinction

What threatens frogs and other amphibians in what is described as the most significant mass extinction since dinosaurs, is not natural predators but a parasitic fungus called amphibian chytrid. Also called chytridiomycosis, this amphibian parasitic fungus has affected 30-50% of amphibian species worldwide, causing significant population declines in some areas and extinctions in other areas. The amphibian fungus started in Africa and spread to South America, Central America, North America and Australia. So far, the fungus on frogs and other amphibians cannot be treated or killed in the wild.

The danger of amphibian extinction is when frogs, toads, salamanders, and other amphibians start to disappear, other animal species soon become extinct because of nature's chain of survival. Frogs eat insects that carry Malaria, a human killer disease. Frogs and other amphibians also eat insects that are threats to food crops. In an effort to save the frogs and other amphibians from mass extinction, environmentalists started the Amphibian Ark in 2008 along with a major sponsor, the Clorox Company that makes Clorox Bleach.

Clorox Bleach Can Save the Frogs

Amphibian Ark is an effort to quarantine healthy species in zoos, aquariums, and environmental institutions around the world for safekeeping, breeding, and release back into the wild. Clorox Bleach is used to keep these safe habitats free from fungus, but the bleach is never applied to the frogs or other amphibians. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Clorox Bleach as a fungicide and it is proven to kill the chytrid fungus on safe habitat surfaces. Clothes, boots, instruments and wildlife carriers used to rescue frogs and other amphibians are treated with Clorox Bleach to prevent the spread of the frog fungus in uncontaminated rescue areas. The frogs are treated with a safe anti-fungal medicine.

Clorox Bleach was the first official sponsor of "2008 Year of the Frog" and is also the official sponsor of the El Valle Amphibian Rescue Center in Central Panama. El Valle will accommodate 1,000 amphibians representing about 40 amphibian species that will be rescued from the wild and the threat of the killer parasitic chytrid fungus. Other sponsors of the El Valle Amphibian Rescue Center include academic institutions, environmental organizations, and international conservation organizations. For more information about saving the frogs, and teacher lesson plans for saving the frogs, visit The Vanishing Frog.

Sources:

Animal Planet Frog Facts

http://animal.discovery.com/amphibians/frog/

Video of a Frog Saving Another Frog From A Snake

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=hhLgR1Injl4

Saving Frogs From Extinction

http://animal.discovery.com/tv/vanishing-frogs/clorox/clorox.html

The Vanishing Frog

http://www.fightforthefrogs.com/