April 17, 2000
Portland, Maine - A study revealing widespread abnormalities in frogs in Maine, Vermont and Minnesota has alarmed scientists since amphibians are barometers of potentially serious environmental problems. In the most extensive study undertaken, the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis., examined 180 damaged northern leopard frogs collected at 16 sites and performed sophisticated X-rays on their bone structure to determine the cause of the abnormalities.
Among the possible clues to what went amiss in the frogs' development are chemicals in the environment, the sun's ultra violet rays and possibly infection from a parasitic worm. The lead researcher, veterinarian pathologist Carol Meteyer, said the frogs' deformities are tied to both where the animals live and the stage in their development when the damage occurred.
Monday's Portland Press Herald reported that in Maine, a number of the deformed frogs came from a 9,000-acre refuge in Sunkhaze Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Milford, north of Bangor. The frogs found there had an extra third leg, 12 toes, additional bones in their feet and increased sheaths of skin. These frogs are doomed to an early death, said Meteyer. "They can't stretch their legs," she said. "It's like a tight band of skin that holds the ankle up to the hip, and so the can't really jump very well. It also causes rotation of that leg, which causes them to jump in the wrong direction. They think they are going straight, and they're actually going off at an angle."
In Vermont, the deformed frogs were missing bones, and in some cases there was no evidence of hip development. In Minnesota, scientists found a parasitic worm, also discovered at Sunkhaze. The immature worm penetrates the skin of tadpoles, arresting their normal development. In a study last year of wildlife refuges, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also discovered abnormalities in green frogs, pickerel frogs, bullfrogs, northern leopard frogs and American toads at Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Wells, Maine, and at Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Newington, N.H. At the Carson refuge, the frogs lacked eyes and hind legs and had two feet, one growing on top of another.
The results of a two-year U.N. study on the world's environmental health will be presented to the U.N. General Assembly in September. Reflecting on the findings of 197 scientists, the report is expected to shed light on the current health of the world's ecosystems and the creatures, such as the amphibians, that are in danger.
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