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Science Quickly

This Frog Can't Hear Its Own Calls

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.2639 Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2017

⏱️ 3 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The frogs' calls are too high-pitched for the frog to detect, which may be an artifact of evolution. Christopher Intagliata reports. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Understanding the human body is a team effort. That's where the Yachtel group comes in.

0:05.8

Researchers at Yachtolt have been delving into the secrets of probiotics for 90 years.

0:11.0

Yacold also partners with nature portfolio to advance gut microbiome science through the global grants for gut health, an investigator-led research program.

0:19.6

To learn more about Yachtolt, visit yacolp.co.

0:22.7

.jp. That's y-A-K-U-L-T.C-O.jp. When it comes to a guide for your gut, count on Yacolt.

0:33.6

This is Scientific American's 60-second science. I'm Christopher in Taliatta.

0:38.8

In the frog world, romance is often accompanied by a song.

0:43.0

It's the norm. The vast majority of frogs have males calling to attract females.

0:48.2

Sandra Gute is an evolutionary biologist and herpetologist at the University of Kampinas in Brazil,

0:54.0

and she studies frogs called pumpkin toadlets from the cloud forests of coastal Brazil.

0:59.2

They are extremely cool.

1:01.3

They're teeny tiny.

1:02.9

They're neon orange and they wave their arms around when they feel threatened.

1:06.0

By either a predator or herpetologist.

1:08.8

And true to frog form.

1:10.0

They make this little call that sounds like a cricket, like...

1:14.1

But here's the weird part.

1:17.1

It appears the pumpkin toadlets are not able to hear the sounds they make.

1:21.6

Goot and her colleagues played recordings of the calls to the frogs to look for reactions.

1:25.9

The researchers also traced electrical impulses from the frog's ears to their brains

1:30.0

and even dissected the frog's inner ear.

1:32.8

And it turns out, the frogs just don't have the equipment to hear their own voices.

...

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