Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Frogs pee out foreign objects stuck in their skin

By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience / December 7, 2010
Imagine some buckshot from a shotgun got stuck in your chest or you had a radio transmitter stuck in your side. If you were a frog, your body might be pristine a few weeks afterward — they apparently have the remarkable ability to pee out foreign objects, with their bladders engulfing the intrusions to help get rid of such junk, scientists now find.
Skip to next paragraphNo other animal until now has ever been seen using their bladder eliminating foreign objects embedded in their bodies.
Scientists originally implanted temperature-sensitive radio transmitters in three species of tree frogs in Australia to learn more about how temperature-regulating abilities in frogs might vary with the habitats in which they lived. Unexpectedly, after 25 to 193 days, when the investigators recaptured the amphibians to recover the transmitters, many of the devices — up to 75 percent in one species — were no longer in the body. Instead, the implants had somehow migrated to the bladder.

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