Frogs and Reptiles News

July 22, 2025

Top Headlines

These Dogs Are Trained to Sniff out an Invasive Insect—and They're Shockingly Good at It

July 17, 2025 — Dogs trained by everyday pet owners are proving to be surprisingly powerful allies in the fight against the invasive spotted lanternfly. In a groundbreaking study, citizen scientists taught their ...

Corals in Crisis: A Hidden Chemical Shift Is Reshaping Hawaiian Reefs

July 16, 2025 — Hawaiian coral reefs may face unprecedented ocean acidification within 30 years, driven by carbon emissions. A new study by University of Hawai‘i researchers shows that even under conservative climate scenarios, nearshore waters will change more ...

Can These Endangered Lizards Beat the Heat? Scientists Test Bold Relocation Plan

June 26, 2025 — South Australia’s tiny pygmy bluetongue skink is baking in a warming, drying homeland, so Flinders University scientists have tried a bold fix—move it. Three separate populations were shifted ...

Cluck Once, and the River Shakes: Inside the Amazon’s Giant Snake Saga

June 16, 2025 — A lifelong fascination with nature and fieldwork led this researcher to the world of ethnobiology a field where ecology, culture, and community come together. Investigating how local people relate to species like the anaconda, their work blends ...

Cleaner Fish: Tiny Healers or Hidden Spreaders in Coral Reef Ecosystems?

June 12, 2025 — Reef "beauty salons" staffed by tiny cleaner fish aren t just for parasite removal they may also shape the microbial life of the entire ecosystem. A fascinating new study shows these bustling fish stations influence which microbes move around the ...

Something More Toxic Than Gators Is Hiding in the Swamps

June 12, 2025 — Mercury contamination is surfacing as a serious concern in parts of Georgia and South Carolina, particularly in regions like the Okefenokee Swamp. University of Georgia researchers found alarmingly high levels of the neurotoxic metal in alligators, ...

How Madagascar’s Lizards Became the Island’s Last Hope for Reforestation

June 10, 2025 — After millions of years of evolutionary isolation, Madagascar developed an unparalleled array of wildlife, and recent research has uncovered an unsung ecological hero: the lizard. Though often ...

Extreme Weather Is Wiping out amphibians—Here’s Where It’s Worst

June 6, 2025 — Frogs, salamanders, and other amphibians are not just battling habitat loss and pollution they're now also contending with increasingly brutal heat waves and droughts. A sweeping 40-year study shows a direct link between the rise in extreme weather ...

The Sweet Spot: Sugar-Based Sensors to Revolutionize Snake Venom Detection

June 2, 2025 — Researchers have published the first example of a synthetic sugar detection test for snake venom, offering a new route to rapid diagnosis and better ...

Amphibian Road Mortality Drops by Over 80% With Wildlife Underpasses, Study Shows

May 30, 2025 — A new study shows that wildlife underpass tunnels dramatically reduce deaths of frog, salamanders, and other amphibians migrating across ...

Huge Sea-Urchin Populations Are Overwhelming Hawaii's Coral Reefs

May 28, 2025 — This study measured the growth rate of coral reefs in Honaunau Bay, Hawaii, using on-site data gathering and aerial imagery. Researchers found that the reefs are being eroded by sea urchin populations which have exploded due to overfishing in the ...

Study Discovers DNA Switch That Controls TB Growth, and Could Help Unlock Its Antibiotic Resistance Secrets

May 26, 2025 — The bacteria that cause tuberculosis (TB) may have an 'on-off switch' that lets them pause and restart growth, according to a new study. The research helps explain why TB is so hard to treat with ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:44pm EDT

Beneath the Scales: The Secret Bone Armor That Helped Lizards Survive Australia

July 22, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered hidden bony armor—called osteoderms—beneath the skin of 29 goanna species across Australasia, a discovery that ...

Brighter, Bolder, Hotter: Why Female Guppies Can't Resist Orange

July 10, 2025 — Male guppies that glow with more orange aren’t just fashion-forward — they’re also significantly more sexually active. A UBC study reveals that brighter coloration is linked to virility and is ...

North America’s Oldest Pterosaur Unearthed in Arizona’s Triassic Time Capsule

July 9, 2025 — In the remote reaches of Arizona s Petrified Forest National Park, scientists have unearthed North America's oldest known pterosaur a small, ...

Mammals Didn't Walk Upright Until Late—here's What Fossils Reveal

June 25, 2025 — The shift from lizard-like sprawl to upright walking in mammals wasn’t a smooth climb up the evolutionary ladder. Instead, it was a messy saga full of unexpected detours. Using new bone-mapping ...

Rainbow Reefs Revealed: The Secret 112-Million-Year Saga of Glowing Fish

June 17, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered that fish biofluorescence a captivating ability to glow in vivid colors has ancient roots stretching back over 100 million years. This trait evolved independently in reef ...

600-Million-Year-Old Body Blueprint Found in Sea Anemones

June 16, 2025 — Sea anemones may hold the key to the ancient origins of body symmetry. A study from the University of Vienna shows they use a molecular mechanism known as BMP shuttling, once thought unique to ...

Scientists Reveal the Hidden Pause That Keeps Bee Colonies Alive

June 10, 2025 — Bumblebee queens don t work nonstop. UC Riverside scientists discovered that queens take strategic reproductive breaks early in colony formation likely to conserve energy and increase the chance of ...

Why Some Spiders Are More Venomous Than Others

May 23, 2025 — A new study has revealed why some spiders possess venom that is far more potent than others. By analyzing the venoms of more than 70 different spider species, the team explored whether factors such ...

Mystery of 'Very Odd' Elasmosaur Finally Solved: Fiercely Predatory Marine Reptile Is New Species

May 23, 2025 — A mysterious sea monster fossil discovered decades ago in British Columbia has finally revealed its true identity — and it’s unlike anything ...

New Research Reveals Puff Adders as an Important Conservation and Rodent Control Solution

May 20, 2025 — New research has revealed that puff adders (Bitis arietans) can be highly efficient at controlling rodent populations that threaten agricultural ...

160 Million Years Ago, This Fungus Pierced Trees Like a Microscopic Spear

June 8, 2025 — In a paper published in National Science Review, a Chinese team of scientists highlights the discovery of well-preserved blue-stain fungal hyphae within a Jurassic fossil wood from northeastern ...

Native Turtles Return to Yosemite After Removal of Invasive Bullfrogs

May 20, 2025 — After invasive American bullfrogs 'croak,' native turtles return to Yosemite, finds a new ...

Heat-Tolerant Symbionts a Critical Key to Protecting Florida's Elkhorn Coral from Bleaching During Marine Heatwaves

May 16, 2025 — A new study reveals that heat-tolerant symbiotic algae may be essential to saving elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) -- a foundational species in Caribbean reef ecosystems -- from the devastating ...

Key Player in Childhood Food Allergies Identified: Thetis Cells

May 15, 2025 — Thetis cells, a class of immune cells first described in 2022, play an essential and previously unknown role in suppressing inflammatory responses to food, a new study ...

Scientists Track Down Mutation That Makes Orange Cats Orange

May 15, 2025 — Many an orange cat-affiliated human will vouch for their cat's, let's say, specialness. But now scientists have confirmed that there is, in fact, something unique about ginger-hued domestic ...

Fossil Tracks Show Reptiles Appeared on Earth Up to 40 Million Years Earlier

May 14, 2025 — The origin of reptiles on Earth has been shown to be up to 40 million years earlier than previously thought -- thanks to evidence discovered at an Australian fossil site that represents a critical ...

Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time

May 14, 2025 — Scientists have now discovered the oldest ancestor for all the Australian tree frogs, with distant links to the tree frogs of South ...

An Ink That Boosts Coral Reef Settlement by 20 Times

May 14, 2025 — With coral reefs in crisis due to climate change, scientists have engineered a bio-ink that could help promote coral larvae settlement and restore these underwater ecosystems before it's too ...

From Prehistoric Resident to Runaway Pet: First Tegu Fossil Found in the U.S.

May 12, 2025 — Originally from South America, the charismatic tegu made its way to the United States via the pet trade of the 1990s. But a recent discovery shows these reptiles are no strangers to the region -- ...

Invasive Salmon, Clams and Seaweed Are Next Threats to Biodiversity in Britain

May 12, 2025 — Pink salmon, Purple Asian clams, marine invertebrates that form spaghetti-like colonies and a nematode worm that causes extensive deaths of trees are among the new entries in experts' watchlist ...

Two New Crocodile Species Discovered

May 6, 2025 — Biologists have discovered two previously unknown species of crocodiles, one living on the island of Cozumel and the other on the atoll of Banco Chinchorro, both off the Yucat n Peninsula. The ...

Halo Patterns Around Coral Reefs May Signal Resilience

May 5, 2025 — A new study links grazing halo patterns in coral reefs, as well as those in other patchy habitats, to the spatial patterns of the shelter habitat itself. The researchers found that grazing halos are ...

Biological 'Clocks' Key to Muscle Health and Accelerated Aging in Shift Workers

May 5, 2025 — Muscle cells contain their own circadian clocks and disrupting them with shift work can have a profound impact on aging, according to new ...

Genomic Survey Uncovers Evolutionary Origins of Secretoglobins

May 5, 2025 — At a conference in Washington D.C. in 2000, the secretoglobin super family of proteins was named to classify proteins with structural similarities to its founding member uteroglobin. Now, 25 years ...

Ancient Poems Tell the Story of Charismatic River Porpoise's Decline Over the Past 1,400 Years

May 5, 2025 — Endemic to China's Yangtze River, the Yangtze finless porpoise is known for its intelligence and charismatic appearance; it looks like it has a perpetual smile on its face. To track how this ...

Loss of Sea Ice Alters the Colors of Light in the Ocean

May 2, 2025 — The disappearance of sea ice in polar regions due to global warming not only increases the amount of light entering the ocean, but also changes its color. These changes have far-reaching consequences ...

Antivenom Neutralizes the Neurotoxins of 19 of the World's Deadliest Snakes

May 2, 2025 — By using antibodies from a human donor with a self-induced hyper-immunity to snake venom, scientists have developed the most broadly effective antivenom to date, which is protective against the likes ...

From the Front Garden to the Continent: Why Biodiversity Does Not Increase Evenly from Small to Large

Apr. 30, 2025 — The number of species does not increase evenly when going from local ecosystems to continental scales -- a phenomenon ecologists have recognized for decades. Now, an international team of scientists ...

Protein Sources Change the Gut Microbiome -- Some Drastically

Apr. 30, 2025 — Protein sources appear to have major effects on both the population and function of the mouse gut ...

When Sea Stars Fall, Sea Otters Rise: Sea Otters Benefit from Prey Boom Triggered by Loss of Ochre Sea Stars

Apr. 30, 2025 — In 2013, a sea star wasting syndrome decimated populations of Pisaster along the west coast of North America and along the Monterey Peninsula in California, where this study was conducted. The orange ...