Frogs come in loads of crazy colours - but the reasons why can be quite complicated. We try to get to grips with some fascinating new research which suggests frogs can be both cryptic and shockingly obvious. Of course we have an amphibian Species of the Bi-Week. FULL REFERENCE LIST AVAILABLE AT: herphighlights.podbean.com

Main Paper References:

Barnett, JB, C Michalis, NE Scott-Samuel, and IC Cuthill. 2018. “Distance-Dependent Defensive Coloration in the Poison Frog Dendrobates Tinctorius , Dendrobatidae.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201800826.

Lawrence, JP, M Mahony, and BP Noonan. 2018. “Differential Responses of Avian and Mammalian Predators to Phenotypic Variation in Australian Brood Frogs.” PLoS ONE 13 (4): 1–8.

Species of the Bi-Week:

Munir, M, A Hamidy, A Farajallah, and EN Smith. 2018. “A New Megophrys Kuhl and Van Hasselt (Amphibia: Megophryidae) from Southwestern Sumatra, Indonesia.” Zootaxa 4442 (3): 389.

Other Mentioned Papers/Studies:

Beckmann, Christa, and Richard Shine. 2012. “Do Drivers Intentionally Target Wildlife on Roads?” Austral Ecology 37 (5):629–32.

Maan, M. E., & Cummings, M. E. (2009). Sexual dimorphism and directional sexual selection on aposematic signals in a poison frog. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(45), 19072-19077.

Phillips, Ben, and Richard Shine. 2007. “When Dinner Is Dangerous: Toxic Frogs Elicit Species-Specific Responses from a Generalist Snake Predator.” The American Naturalist 170 (6):936–42.

Valkonen, J. K., Mäkelä, A., Mappes, J., & López‐Sepulcre, A. (In Press). Evaluating the potential for evolutionary mismatch in Batesian mimics: a case study in the endangered Smooth Snake (Coronella austriaca). Evolutionary Applications.

Wüster, W., C. S. E. Allum, I. B. Bjargardottir, K. L. Bailey, K. J. Dawson, J. Guenioui, J. Lewis, et al. 2004. “Do Aposematism and Batesian Mimicry Require Bright Colours? A Test, Using European Viper Markings.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 271 (1556):2495–99.

Xing, L., Caldwell, M. W., Chen, R., Nydam, R. L., Palci, A., Simões, T. R., ... & Wang, K. (2018). A mid-Cretaceous embryonic-to-neonate snake in amber from Myanmar. Science Advances, 4(7), eaat5042.

Other Links/Mentions:

BBC coverage of snake in amber – https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44872148

Blog of snake in amber - https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/87830-tiago-r-simoes/posts/36712-a-new-chapter-on-early-snake-evolution-the-tale-of-the-snake-in-amber

Music:

Intro/outro – Treehouse by Ed Nelson

Other Music – The Passion HiFi, www.thepassionhifi.com