It’s a great question. And it is not answered in this somewhat lengthy Scientific American article, but the article is worth reading for just asking the question.

What it boils down to is this, African clawed frogs were among the first frogs to be diagnosed with frog-killing chytrid fungus infections. The are kept by the hundreds when they are shipped around the world as research animals and cheap pets. Even one infected frog introduced to the distribution system has the potential to spread the fungus around the world — particularly if the frogs are released into the wild.

African clawed frogs do not show symptoms of the fungal infection. Neither do bullfrogs, which have their own global distribution network. (They are food.)

There are lots of links in the article. Don’t ignore them. They bring you to journal articles and other supporting information.

Read the article in Scientific American, here.

Photo: African clawed frog by Chris Brown, courtesy US Geological Survey

Ever wonder why some scientists wind up studying leeches or arachnids? If you study something cute and furry — or at least good to eat, you may be even more curious than the average person why some scientists study things that are decidedly not.

This week’s New York Times Science section has a brief article on how scientists pick their study subjects. Particularly, how biologists pick the animals that they study when those animals don’t generally have any appeal for humans.

I decided it was worth one of my 10 free NY Times articles for the month, and you might find it interesting too.

The article: For Scientists, Falling in Love May Take a Lifetime of Research

When is it OK to advocate in scientific paper? In the discussion section? When the implications of the research are clear? Never?

ScienceInsider reports that the editor of Conservation Biology either asked journal authors to remove “advocacy statements” from the papers before publication, or asked them to label such statements as opinion. No examples of “advocacy statements” were given. The article says that the Society for Conservation Biology’s board of governors was not happy with the editorial nudging, and did not renew the editor’s contract.

However, one member of the Society’s editorial board says in the article that 20 percent of the 60 member editorial board have resigned in protest of the editor’s firing.

Given that the role of advocacy itself is controversial in the field of conservation biology, this issue may be difficult for future editors to side-step.

Read more at ScienceInsider, a news service of AAAS.

A cardiologist visited the zoo and wondered if the animals got the same diseases that her human patients do. She did some research and found out that they do get many of the same diseases — including obesity and diabetes.

The cardiologist wrote a book about her findings, and that book was excerpted in the New York Times on Sunday.

The reason you should know about this article and this book is because throughout, the cardiologist refers to the zoo animals as wild animals. You should also know about it because she tries to relate animals fattening up before hibernation or migration and the occasional natural abundance of some preferred foods to human eating patterns.

I’m not sure if these analogies will be helpful for human health, but they are certainly not adding anything to the understanding of wildlife conservation and management.

Read the complete opinion piece here.

At the University of California, Davis robots are being used to study the reaction of squirrels and rattlesnakes, the display behavior by anole lizards in the jungles and ecology,  the mating behavior of sage grouse, according to a press release from the university.

In the case of the squirrels, the researcher was curious whether the heating of the squirrel’s tail during an encounter with a rattlesnake played a role in the interaction. In real squirrels, the heating can’t be separated from the tail waving, so a robot squirrel was used.

An earlier study found that the snakes did respond to the heat in the squirrel’s tail, but the paper was published in a robotics journal.

Find out more about using robots to study wildlife behavior in the University of California, Davis press release.

There was also a short item from CNN.

The robosquirrel in action, screen shot, videography by Rulon Clark Lab/San Diego State University