There exists frogs that can "winter" themselves and be able to survive through abnormally cold conditions because of it. After the cold goes away these frogs can "defrost" and return back to normal functionality. However, there has been a discovery of a frog that can withstand some of the longest and coldest winters known to man in Northern Siberia. The Siberian wood frog has been noticed to have one of the largest and coldest ranges of all the frogs in Siberia and where these frogs "winter" gets too cold for any land frog to be able to survive. The normal time for a frog to be able to "winter" itself without freezing to death is around 3-10 days in this Siberian -2.5
°C winter. However, the Siberian wood frog has found a way to winter for up to 8 months! The way this frog can sustain such a feat is to winter itself underwater. Now with having a warmer place to winter, it comes with a risk; Hypoxia, the condition of extremely low or no oxygen at all. 
This Figure shows the experiment that was run to show just how adapted these frogs could be to low oxygen levels since the waters in Norther Siberia lose their oxygen when they freeze over. The red and blue frogs were wintering frogs and were prepared for such conditions while the purple frogs were picked after winterizing and were not ready for such conditions. These frogs can withstand up to 3 months of living in water with .2mg/l oxygen levels to possibly no oxygen at all!
This article was extremely shocking to me since I had no idea that frogs like this could withstand an environment with close to no oxygen supply! This just shows us how incredibly adaptive these animals have become in their quest to survive and pass on their genes to another generation!
Article reviewed: The Siberian wood frog survives for months underwater without oxygen
Authors:
Daniil I. Berman,
Nina A. Bulakhova &
Ekaterina N. Meshcheryakova
Journal:
Scientific Reportsvolume 9, Article number: 13594 (2019
2 comments:
This is crazy amazing and goes to show that life, uh, finds a way!
"Typical" frog: [American accent] It is too cold here in Siberia; I will perish here!
Siberian Wood Frog: [Russian accent] Is nice and warm here is frozen pond; join me comrade!
"Typical" frog: Thank you, but, uh, where is the oxygen?
Siberian Wood Frog: Perhaps in America you use oxygen, but in mother Russia, oxygen use you.
"Typical" frog: *Dies*
Siberian Wood Frog: *Lives to over-winter another year*
Any idea what mechanism allows it to survive prolonged hypoxia?
Post a Comment