Amid Agony, Scientists Discover World's First Venomous Frog

sciencehabit writes: Some discoveries come with a price, and Brazilian biologist Carlos Jared's discovery of the world's first known venomous frog came with agony. When Carlos picked up a Brazilian hylid frog—a small, lumpy, green amphibian—while doing fieldwork, the frog raked him with spines hidden within its upper lip across the hand. He dropped the frog, and excruciating pain shot up his arm for the next 5 hours. It was known that some frogs secrete poison onto their skin but this species has tiny spines on their heads and upper lips that enable them to inject lethal venom directly into the bloodstream. C. greening's venom is twice as potent as that of the deadly pit viper, the researchers report.

Comments

It looks just like him

[argStyopa]

If they don't name that frog after Moe from the Simpsons, then I just don't want to know about it.

(Moe Sizlak: http://webpages.shepherd.edu/B... )

Places where everything wants to kill you

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon rainforest, Australian outback, Middle East, Somalia, Baltimore

Re:Far Side

[wonkey_monkey]

I hope they remembered their ducks.

Sometimes

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Sometimes science advances with the phrase "hmm, that's unexpected" and sometimes with the phrase "arghargharghargharghargh!".

Re:Frogs

[RenderSeven]

But if the police use it to hit you, it is a "non-lethal compliance tool" (unless you have the video then it's a "civil rights lawsuit").