This Weird Tiny Frog Hears With Its Mouth

Monday, September 2, 2013 - 14:30 in Biology & Nature

Gardiner's Frog R. Boistel/CNRS "Talk directly into my mouth, please." The Gardiner's Seychelles frog is one of the smallest amphibians in the world, measuring less than half an inch long. But their extreme tininess isn't the only curious thing about them. As a new study shows, this species of frog has no eardrum and no middle ear--and yet it can croak and hear other croaks. How is this possible? A team of scientists from a variety of French universities set out to unravel the mystery of the tiny frog. Frogs don't have ears in the same way that mammals do, with an external cartilaginous sounding board; instead, their eardrums are directly on the skin. But the Gardiner's Seychelles frog doesn't even have that. First, the scientists had to figure out if the frogs could even hear, so they recorded calls from other frogs and played them through speakers. The test frogs responded,...

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