Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.
Except--what if they didn't?
Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog.
Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage.
The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!
Monday, October 12, 2015
Scientists Resurrect Bonkers Extinct Frog That Gives Birth Through Its Mouth
It's been gone since 1983, but the Lazarus Project has brought it back to life.
Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.
Except--what if they didn't?
Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog.
Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage.
The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!
Gastric-Brooding Frog Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts
In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this--it's mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes--parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime.
Except--what if they didn't?
Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog--the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it's wearing sunglasses--deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog.
Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it's possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage.
The embryos didn't survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog--that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a "technical, not biological" problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals--the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they've learned.
Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog's stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!
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The gastric-brooding frog is a really cool animal. I think its amazing they could actually bring something that's suppose to be gone forever back to life. If were making these discoveries now then in the future theres no telling what big things we will be doing with so called extinct species.
ReplyDeleteI think this is really cool. If they can get the gastric-brooding frog to come back to life, then this could lead to many other organisms being brought back. If they do it then they have defied what the word extinct actually means. Hopefully they can get this process working so we can see many animals that we've never seen before.
ReplyDeleteI first read of something like this in an issue of National Geographic when they found a baby Wooly Mammoth. I like this because Lazarus is a thing from Batman. I think this needs to happen and needs to be funded. How cool would it be to have the mammoth back.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if eventually scientist will be able to clone humans and bring humans back to life and if so, I wonder if the clones would have defects or other problems. I also think that the frog was cool because it gives birth through its mouth.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing how humans can bring back extinct species, even from the leftover material found in a deep freezer. This animal has a unique adaptation to hatch eggs in its mouth, one I found disgusting as I was eating a snack. However I like the article's relevance to what we had recently talked about in class, the limiting factors of a species.
ReplyDeleteThis animal is very interesting and unique. I don't really know how I feel about reviving extinct animals. On one hand if the animal went extinct because it could not survive that's just part of nature. On the other hand if humans drove the animal to extinction maybe it should get another chance.
ReplyDeleteThis is honestly really cool that scientists are able to do that because this little frog was supposed to be extinct and they brought them back. If they can do something like this then who knows what they will be able to do in the future? But back to the frog, it is really weird because it gives birth through its mouth, I've never heard of something like that before.
ReplyDeleteI'm not so excited about this because i believe the scientist that discovered this will eventually go too far and try to bring back species that i believe the world doesn't really need or want any more. For example, what if they try to bring back the dinosaurs. If they are successful at that, that species will most likely lead us to extinction.
ReplyDeleteOk, commence puking. Um wow, I really don't know what to say, that's really gross. I agree with Andrew though, we need to bring back the wooly mammoth
ReplyDeleteThis find is very controversial. On one hand, it's really cool and this could be something that could be beneficial possibly and really cool to do. On the other hand, as Christian said, what if the scientist tries to bring back other species that aren't needed. If they continue to go through with this, I believe the scientists need to make a clear defined line of where they aren't allowed to cross and what's going too far. Other than that, I think this is really cool.
ReplyDeleteI think this could eventually lead to the bringing back of other extinct animals. This could be very helpful but also cause a big problem. Some religions don't agree with cloning and this could cause protest and riots. This is very cool that scientists can do this but I think not many people will agree. It all depends on what they do next.
ReplyDeleteI think that this frog is very interesting because this is the first time i've heard about an organism giving birth through its mouth. I wonder if cloning could be done with any other organisms that have become extinct to bring them back. Also I wonder if this can be done to humans and if this is a safe thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI find this article very interesting. I think that the gastric brooding frog is a very cool animal. It is amazing how scientist have the ability to bring it back. This could have a noticeable impact on the environment. I strongly feel that if studies are successful there will begin to be a positive change with the environment and other animals could be brought back as well.
ReplyDeleteI think that this Lazarus Project is a very cool idea because it allows us humans to bring back organisms that are now currently extinct. I think that this experiment has endless opportunities for us to be able to revive organisms that have been extinct for a while now. The frog sounds pretty interesting as well because I've never heard of an organism giving birth through its mouth. But the scientists need to figure out if this project is 100 percent safe, because eventually it seems that this could be done to humans and 100 of other species.
ReplyDeleteThe Lazurus Project, well the first thing that comes to mind is I wonder if people in the future will be doing this to us? But on the topic of rescuing a unique frog, that can give birth through its mouth, is very cool in my opinion, all though all the genetics would be fairly new and weird to me, mixing them all up, making it look like they have "glasses" would be suspicious. Every time I see somebody want to bring something back to life from the dead, I always think of Jurassic Park, and that sooner or later people will be bringing back dinosaurs and much more species that everyone would love to see but put us all in danger.
ReplyDeleteThe Lazurus Project sounds pretty interesting. I think that an animal that gives birth through its mouth is a little disturbing but also cool. I just think scientist need to be careful when doing these experiments. One day they are going to create an organism that is going to cause mass destruction on earth.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Lazurus Project is very cool because they are trying to bring an extinct species back to life after it has been dead for a really long time. I also think that the Gastric-Brooding Frog is really cool because it delivers its babies through their mouth instead of the uterus. I think that this could lead to a lot of extinct animals coming back in the future.
ReplyDeleteI think the Lazurus Project is cool, but very weird if it happened to us as humans. It's really neat to see that scientist could bring an animal back after its been extinct. Hopefully in the future, more organisms are brought back that are needed.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I find bring back extinct species fascinating, I don't find it practical. I say this because this species was extinct due to other factors than humans. If we do place this frog back into its original habitat it will not last if it was already taken out by the factors in it. Had this organism been extinct due to humans I would have felt a lot more strongly towards bring them back.
ReplyDeleteI think the lazurus project is very interesting, and could lead to hundreds of species of animals becoming non-extinct. However, I think we should focus on current endangered species rather than bringing back extinct species, because we would never need this project if we would save current endangered animals.
ReplyDeleteBeing able to bring back extinct species seems pretty cool but when you think deeper it doesn't serve a purpose. I get it would be cool to bring back old extinct species, but what about the current endangered species? Why not focus on them now so that when they go extinct, we don't have to perform this project? Also, those species went extinct for some reason, yes probably from humans,but regardless for a reason. If we bring back these extinct species, whats to stop them from going extinct again? Some of the species went extinct long ago, like the woolly mammoth. We are not use to having a woolly mammoth here, it could be dangerous to bring back some of these species.
ReplyDeleteIf we bring back these extinct species, what's to stop them from going extinct again? I think we should focus on current endangered species rather than bringing back extinct species, because we would never need this project if we would save current endangered animals.
ReplyDeleteThe lazerus project is an important project in science. I'm not sure if it will help the environment since they already went extinct already. Although the research can be used to save endangered species today. Humans need to realize that they are destroying the environment though to save the environment.
ReplyDeleteThis would be a great invention if we knew for a fact all of the potential outcomes. This could damage other species or even the ones we are trying to get back. Of course it would be very fun and interesting and probably even more educational if we were introduced to once extinct animals, but the longer lasting outcome could haunt human kind along with other species that are either on the verge of extinction or still living. I think it's best if we just left things as they are and should be and let time run it's course how it should.
ReplyDeleteI think this was interesting the imagine all the other extinct species we could bring back. Also I think this will lead to many other researches on how to stop these species from going extinct. I think that us as people should start to think bout the decisions we make that might negatively affect species for example destroying species habitats instead of trying to create more companies we should think about how we're hurting all these beautiful species.
ReplyDelete