Feeling blue? A citizen scientist asked about blue (axanthic) frogs, leading to a pandemic-era internship project to explore the spatial, phylogenetic, and temporal prevalence of axanthism in frogs lead by Drs. Molly Womack and Rayna Bell. Read the results this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

How does Chytrid affect a species' role in it's ecosystem? Read this week's #AWNews on Scheele et al. (2025) work at AmphibiaWeb.org to find out.

An impressive study by Donnellan et al. (2025) provides a near-comprehensive phylogenetic tree for a major clade of frogs that occur across Australia, New Guinea, and many islands in the adjacent Indo-Australian Archipelago. Read More about this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

The process to become a troglodyte is being illuminated in our latest #AWNews. Read how Tovar et al.'s use a radiation of paedomorphic Brook Salamanders (Eurycea) to study the molecular and developmental basis of eye loss at AmphibiaWeb.org.

The chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) has caused amphibian declines worldwide, but its history and impacts in Africa are less well understood. Kouete et al. (2025) contributes to our knowledge of this disease in the region in this week's #AWNews on the AmphibiaWeb.org homepage.

Nori et al. (2025) investigates a Anuran Data Deficit: tadpole descriptions. Their analyses suggest strategically focusing on 0.25% of Earth’s terrestrial surface could reveal more than half of the undescribed tadpoles. Read more of this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

A reminder that the application for the Future For Nature Awards 2026 is open until August 25th 23:59 (CEST). See the link for more information futurefornature.org/apply/

Carrillo et al. (2024 & 2025) report new intriguing female parental care via chemical stimuli that cause tadpoles to aggregate and follow females. Check out AmphibiaWeb.org for more on this #AWNews

Many amphibians have large genomes, and some are polyploid. Chen et al. (2025) ask how polyploidy affects organismal physiology in a unique population of Microhyla fissipes, which has individuals with diploid and tetraploid genomes. Read more of this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org.

In this week's #AWNews, Barrionuevo and colleagues (2025) rediscovered Telmatobius ceiorum, which hadn't been seen in 40 years, at a location further north than previously known. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org.

Don't jump to quick(silver) conclusions. In this week's #AWNews Kain et al. (2025) provide evidence that immune response in the presence of methylmercury can be highly variable in wild populations of amphibians. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org

All Fired Up? Brooks et al. (2025) recently found that the rare and threatened Florida Bog Frog, Rana (Aquarana) okaloosae, has higher occupancy rates at sites that have regular prescribed fires. These fires mimic their historic cycles. Read more of this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

DO be square! This week's #AWNews features Brown et al. (2024)'s functional analysis of how Aneides vagrans' square toes help them climb. Read more on the AmphibiaWeb.org home page.

In this week's #AWNews Santana et al. (2025) report that female frog calls are more widespread than previously believed, and propose a revised classification for frog calls with six specific categories, applicable to both sexes. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org

Stewart and Wiens (2025) dropped a new comprehensive multilocus phylogeny for salamanders this year that includes 765 of the 825 known species. Check out more of this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org.

This week's #AWNews is a little late. Taylor et al. (2024) uses the somitogenesis clock mathematical model to identify parameter changes originating from increased genome and nuclear size. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org

Our latest newsletter went out on Sunday. Check it out here: tinyurl.com/AWeb2025Summer and sign up for our newsletters here: tinyurl.com/AWebNewsletter (please ignore the "Return to Website" link, we're fixing it to go to us instead of the MVZ!)

A friendly reminder that negative results still give us good info! Messersmith et al. (2024) tested the Hamilton-Zuk hypothesis in Pacific treefrogs and found females don't show a preference when male call is affected by Bd. Read more about this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

It's looking like Telmatobius is a genera of good dads. Brunetti et al. (2025) made parental care observations in five, distantly related Telmatobius species and found all of them had male parental care. This #AWNews finding suggests that parental care is a basal trait. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org

Sherlock et al. (2025) investigated one of the rare island endemic amphibians, Hypogeophis rostratus, finding that their genetic signature was more strongly associated with their islands' paleo history than their modern isolated distribution. Find out more of this #AWNews at AmphibiaWeb.org

Tadpole out of Water! Gould et al. (2025) report their observations of Limnodynastes peronii tadpoles resting on vegetation mats and discuss why this might be happening. Read more of this #AWNews on our homepage Amphibiaweb.org

Invasive African Clawed Frogs (Xenopus laevis) can be found in a diversity of waterbodies in Washington state, USA. Emmenegger et al. (2025) discuss why this is a problem and how effective the mitigation efforts have been in this week's #AWNews. Read more at AmphibiaWeb.org.

How many times has vocal sacs been lost in the anuran tree of life? Find the answer to this and many other vocal sac evolution questions in this week's #AWNews featuring work by Elias-Costa and Faivovich (2025) at AmphibiaWeb.org

Some good news for Dusky Gopher frogs (Rana (Pantherana) sevosa)! Bogisich et al. (2025) report on Memphis Zoo's long term captive‐release and reintroduction program for the species and report successful post-release recruitment. Read more of the #AWnews at Amphibiaweb.org.

Kalki and Pierson (2025) have found that two-lined Salamander males have their mating strategies (searching or guarding) encoded in their genome. Read more about this #AWnews at AmphibiaWeb.org

Amphibian Traits! We started tracking trait compilations (published and unpublished), and just added ATRAIU and CAECILIANTRAITS to our list: amphibiaweb.org/amphibian/tr... We welcome contributions and suggestions as always #amphibians #traits Let us know if you find these useful!

🐸🌿🧪

How hot can tailed-frogs get? Forester et al. (2025) found that Ascaphus truei and montanus have different responses encoded in their genome. Read more of our #AWnews feature on our homepage AmphibiaWeb.org

SSAR (Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles) sent out their newsletter this week. There are two items related to their 2025 meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota that our audience may be interested in (1/3):

All seasonally-migrating frogs do poorly when their path is blocked or altered, but Carvalho et al. (2025) found that in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, aquatic-breeding frogs do the worst. Read more in this week's #AWnews at AmphibiaWeb.org

Dr. Robert Denton, who studies amphibian genomics, evolution, and conservation, is moving to Ball State University from Marian University. He has master student openings. Check out his lab page for more info dentonlab.org

That bitter taste isn't just in the mouth in frogs. Higgins et al. (2025) found a very large number of bitter taste receptor genes in Wood Frogs that are also expressed in brain, liver, stomach, and skin. See what implications this finding has in this week's #AWnews at AmphibiaWeb.org.

AmphibiaWeb.org will be unavailable on Sunday, March 30, 2025, from about 2:00am to 10:30pm Pacific Time, for a scheduled data server maintenance. Please hop back on after that. In the meantime, enjoy this 1982 photo of Chiropterotriton magnipes take by our founder David B. Wake.

How do frogs determine sex? Evans et al. 2024 found unexpected results for 11 Xenopus species in this week's #AWnews; 8 different sex chromosomes located in genomic regions where genetic recombination is high! Read the full news box at amphibiaweb.org where you can also find a link to the paper.

Chuliver et al. (2024) discovered a fossilized tadpole from the Middle Jurassic of Patagonia (~ 161 million years ago), representing the earliest known tadpole. Read more on this #AWnews on our homepage: amphibiaweb.org, which also has a link to the paper.

What makes some tiger salamanders want to stay kids forever? Kirk et al. (2024) investigate how environment affect polyphenisms in this week’s #AWnews highlight. Read the whole news feature at amphibiaweb.org

AVAILABLE NOW! Robert Hansen and Jackson Shedd have a new, comprehensive field guide to California amphibians and reptiles. Order directly (press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...) or from your local independent bookseller. it's gorgeous and really thoughtful in its details of California herpetology!

If you can sing, you're going to be a great taking care of the kids! Thinks female Reticulated Glassfrogs in a #AWnews highlight of Garrido-Priego et al. (2024) research. Read the news: amphibiaweb.org !

What's the Bsal risk in the fire salamander's montane relatives, Alpine salamanders? Böning et al (2024) shares their sampling and modeling work in #AWnews at amphibiaweb.org The news is good and presents an opportunity in amphibian conservation

Happy New Year's! The 2024 image is by Jules Wyman- a humble spadefoot frog in starry Arizona, ready for its future. Make AmphibiaWeb part of yours! Read a few 2024 tidbits in #AWnews on amphibiaweb.org or check out Jules' photo (calphotos.berkeley.edu/cgi/img_quer...) Best wishes to all!

2nd update: AmphibiaWeb's occasional but packed newsletter is out for the Winter! mailchi.mp/9919b782a046... Read here and sign up on AW: amphibiaweb.org/newsletter.h... Another edition guest edited by our students! Enjoy the beautiful photos

So many updates! 1st: check out #AWnews: Miñarro et al. (2024) solves a few mysteries about the elusive Flat-headed frog tadpoles (spoiler: not a direct developer after all!) amphibiaweb.org/index.html

Glow in the dark frogs is News of the Week: Is this frogs' secret language-- biofluorescence!? Read more at amphibiaweb.org by Courtney Whitcher et al 2024 #Herpetology #Amphibians #AWnews

Who wants a cloud of toad tads to nibble at their toes? Rhetorical of course! See News of the Week (amphibiaweb.org) highlighting Shane Gross who was awarded photo of the year. #photo #amphibian #toads www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/gallery/...

Oops so slow to adjust to the new social media! News of the Week is the best title: "Love Hug—Functional Validation of Nuptial Pad-Secreted Pheromone in Anurans" (Zheng et al 2024) Read more: amphibiaweb.org - a new one every Monday. #Herpetology #Amphibians #AWnews

News Highlight (should've posted on Monday-oops!): What is the smallest vertebrate (animals with a backbone) in the world? Turns out, it’s a frog. Thanks to Bolaños et al. (2024) for measuring a lot of tiny frogs-- Read the answer on AmphibiaWeb amphibiaweb.org