Pipa Pipa Research Articles

The Frog Book by Steve Jenkins

Reviewed by: The Frog Book by Steve Jenkins Deborah Stevenson, Editor Jenkins, Steve The Frog Book; written and illus. by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019 [40p] ISBN 978-0-544-38760-7 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-5 The estimable Jenkins and Page now turn their picture-book lens to those popular amphibians, the frogs. Spreads tackle topics ranging from “What is a frog?” and “Frog or toad?” (answer: toads are, in fact, just one kind of frog) to the fascinating frog life cycle and then to “What do frogs eat?” and “Frog defenses”; each opening offers, in familiar format, a variety of spot art providing different relevant examples and explanations. There are a few confusing spots in the text (“Frogs blink, but they never close their eyes”), but overall it’s a workmanlike overview of the order and a quick intro to some fascinating species, some of which seem like monsters of sci-fi or ancient mythology (the Surinam toad, whose tadpoles hatch out of her back, or the Darwin’s frog, who releases froglets from his mouth). Cut-paper collage art tackles its subjects from a variety of perspectives, including some dramatic face-to-face views. End matter includes an overview of the featured frogs with information about their size, diet, and range (regrettably, the team’s usual visual scale indications are replaced simply by text measurements) and a list of books and websites for more information. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Curious

Curious Kim Todd (bio) Flat head, lidless eyes, body dirt brown, the Surinam toad slithers through the pond like animated mud, an amphibian golem. Long fingers filter the swamp floor, sweeping fish and worms into a tongueless mouth. Some romantic gave it the alternate title “star-fingered toad,” because after each foot divides into toes, the toes divide again, creating a “star” at the tip. But celestial the toads are not. The most disturbing part, though, is the way they breed. Mating, they somersault through the water, the female dropping eggs on the male’s belly when the pair is upside down. Turning, he brushes them onto her back and fertilizes. The eggs sink into her body, leaving pale warty bumps until, months later, fully formed miniature toads (not tadpoles) burst out and swim away. When they’ve gone, her back is all holes like a drained honeycomb. In the seventeenth century, every collector in Amsterdam coveted a Surinam toad, in a box, in a painting, in a jar. The Dutch had colonized Surinam, a small country on the northeast shoulder of South America. Between planting sugar and pineapple, they marveled at the creations of the tropical rainforest. Frederik Ruysch, botanist and midwifery expert, kept one in his cabinet of curiosity, a gathering of oddities, the [End Page 3] precursor to museums, where his friends could come gawk. Nicholaes Witsen, burgomaster and avid collector, reported seeing the disconcerting toad and described it: “all the back is open as a wound.” Some viewers interpreted the ugly appearance as a judgment for ugly habits: “The pipa is, in form, more hideous than even the common toad; nature seeming to have marked all these strange mannered animals with peculiar deformity,” wrote Oliver Goldsmith in A History of Earth and Animated Nature in 1774. Those who seek her out today still have a visceral response. Comments on a YouTube video of toadlets tearing the skin and kicking free include “damn nature you scary!” and “as a lover of animals im ashamed to say i said KILL it with fire and dont stop . . kill it burn it kill it burn it! then bury it and shoot the grave!” (A more sober-minded commenter suggested that, compared to watching a human birth, it wasn’t bad at all.) Given the strength of the recoil, why can’t we look away? The You-Tube video has been watched almost half a million times. Perhaps now you are tempted. Knowledge of South American toad habits has little practical application. What is the nature of the itch we call “curiosity”? Like the toad, curiosity is a strange beast. The investigating mind moves like a sleek little mammal, a mink maybe, rubbing up against things in the dark, trying to determine their shape, occasionally ripping with sharp teeth and pawing through the opening. Or perhaps a spider, creeping precisely, attaching silk here, and here, and here to impose a pattern where before was just air. Curiosity can be as obsessive as hunger or lechery, swamping the senses. But it is notoriously fickle, too, slinking away as soon as it is satisfied. Its subjects seem so frivolous: a baby giraffe, a dodo skeleton, the Surinam toad. George Loewenstein, author of “The Psychology of Curiosity,” summed it up: “The theoretical puzzle posed by curiosity is why people are so strongly attracted to information that, by the definition of curiosity, confers no extrinsic benefit.” St. Augustine defined it [End Page 4] is as “ocular lust,” the desire to stare at an object, animal, or scene and let the mind roam. Charles Darwin, who you might think would value the trait, saw it as the enemy of substantive inquiry. He wrote in a letter to a friend: “Physiological experiment on animals is justifiable for real investigation, but not for mere damnable and detestable curiosity.” This kinship to physical passion—the strength of desire, the burst of delight—makes curiosity waver between vice and virtue. Intellectual curiosity sparks science, art, all kinds of innovation. Here, in most of twenty-first-century North America, it is held in the highest esteem. For much of history, though, coveting the secrets of the world and mulling over mushrooms...

Amphibia, Anura, Pipidae, Pipa carvalhoi (Miranda-Ribeiro, 1937): distribution extension and geographic distribution map in the southeast of Brazil

We report new records for the Carvalho’s Surinam Toad Pipa carvalhoi in state of Minas Gerais, southeast of Brazil, extending its occurrence in the southern portion of its known geographic range.

States of Nature: Science, Agriculture, and Environment in the Spanish Caribbean, 1760–1940

Scientists played a critical role in the reorganization of plantation agriculture in the Caribbean after slavery. They provided agroexporters with the knowledge, techniques, and attitudes to adapt to a series of ecological threats to their existence. In the process, scientists enabled them to subjugate vast stretches of the Caribbean to a handful of new crop varieties. This created new ecological problems to solve that perpetuated the need for expertise. Stuart McCook has produced a concise, incisive, yet far-ranging defense of this interpretation of the environmental histories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Colombia, and the United States.McCook’s long chapter on the “Eco-Rationalization of the Caribbean Sugar Industry” is the heart and strength of this book. He highlights the heroic success achieved by Puerto Rican agronomist Carlos Chardón during the 1920s in combating mosaic disease, a virus that devastated fields of high-yielding cane hybrids. Through a series of elegant experiments, Chardón identified the insect vector involved and developed techniques to prevent its spread. As McCook points out in earlier chapters, these results were possible because of long-standing efforts to build “creole” scientific institutions and research agendas that served local needs. Latin American enthusiasm for science was not merely premised on ideology; it was based on tangible results.Of course, ideology was also important to these endeavors. In a chapter focused on Swiss botanist Henri Pittier, McCook underscores the importance of nationalist thinking in organizing support for inventories of native plants in Costa Rica and Venezuela. In order to properly serve these young nations, plants required a “civil status.” McCook actually underestimates the stakes involved in acquiring this knowledge: he neglects to note the economic devastation that occurred in South America after foreign scientists transplanted Cinchona and Hevea trees from their native range to form quinine and rubber plantations in tropical Asia. On the other hand, McCook overstates the centrality of liberalism to these projects. Conservatives also embraced them, often with the hope that scientific institutions would produce an “aristocracy of knowledge” to rule Latin America. This fact is implicit in McCook’s later chapters tracing the rising influence of technocratic ideology just before the Great Depression.Regional specialists should give special attention to McCook’s method. He did not allow political boundaries (or the chance acquisitions of specific archives) to delimit his investigation. Instead, he traced the movements of specific experts, plant varieties, and pathogens across national and ecological frontiers using sources scattered between Venezuela, Costa Rica, Puerto Rico, and the United States. This approach enabled McCook to answer fresh new questions about environmental change and to provide new perspectives on the old debate over “national science.”Despite its broad scope, there are limitations to McCook’s regional focus. He only provides occasional indications of the reciprocal influence of Spanish American crop science on plantation agriculture elsewhere in the world (see p. 81 regarding Java’s embrace of Alvaro Reynoso’s 1862 treatise on Cuban cane agriculture). In this vein, readers might like to know about an additional case McCook overlooked: During the 1920s, Puerto Rican agronomists successfully controlled the depredations of white grub on sugar cane by introducing the cane toad (Bufo marinus) from Barbados (pp. 72–74, unfortunately referred to by McCook as the “Surinam toad,” rather than by its scientific name). Mark Lewis tells the rest of this story in the hilarious film Cane Toads: An Unnatural History (1987). Australian agronomists unintentionally unleashed a plague of biblical proportions when they tried to replicate Puerto Rico’s success. This raises an important question: Where should we draw the boundaries of “creole” science and Caribbean agroecosystems? McCook has provided us with a valuable base from which to launch such an investigation.

Characterization of insulin and atypically processed proglucagon-derived peptides from the Surinam toad Pipa pipa (Anura:Pipidae)

Electrospray mass spectrometry was used to identify insulin, glucagon and two peptides related to glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) in an extract of the pancreas of the Surinam toad, Pipa pipa, a species belonging to the same family as the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis. Purification and characterization of the peptides established the primary structure of Pipa insulin as A-chain: GIVEQCCHSS 10CTLLQLETYC 20 N and B-Chain: FSNQR LCGSH 10 LVEALHLVCG 20 DRGFFYYPKA 30. This amino acid sequence contains several substitutions (B5 His → Arg, B16 Tyr → His, A12 Ser → Thr, A14 Tyr→ Leu, A18Asn → Thr) of residues that have otherwise been quite strongly conserved during vertebrate evolution. Pipa glucagon comprises 37 amino acid residues (HSQGTFTSDY 10 SKYLDSRRAQ 20 DFVQWLMNTK 30QSGGLSS) and the 29 amino-acid-residue peptide was not identified in the extract. In Xenopus and mammalian preproglucagons, the glucagon-29 sequence is followed by Lys-Arg which functions as a recognition site for a prohormone convertase. We propose that a point mutation in the gene encoding Pipa preproglucagon has transformed the Lys 30-Arg 31 processing site into Lys-Gln with the result that the site in no longer recognized by the processing enzyme. In contrast, Pipa GLP-32 and GLP-37 are of the same molecular size as the corresponding peptides from Xenopus.

Field studies on the small Surinam toad, Pipa arrabali, near Manaus, Brazil

AbstractA population of the small Surinam toad, Pipa arrabali, was studied at an isolated pool site in undisturbed primary forest, 70 km north of Manaus, Brazil. During the eleven months of examination, 371 individuals were toe-clipped. The toads preferred more persistent pools where they preyed upon tadpoles of other anurans. If a home pool dried up or a source of food became available in one of the other pools the toads migrated over land for short distances. Of a total of 84 recaptures, 28 (33%) were found in a pool other than the original. P. arrabali bred throughout the entire year, but females with larvae in the dermal pockets on their backs were particularly frequent at the end of the rainy season (April to June). No free swimming larval stage occurs. Depending on the size of the female, between 6 and 16 eggs develop directly into small toads. Snout-vent length at emergence ranges from 10 to 14 mm.

The ’fish-frog’ and the Surinam toad

The ’fish-frog’ and the Surinam toad

"Rhubarb" Mounsey and the Surinam toad--a Scottish physician--naturalist in Russia.

"Rhubarb" Mounsey and the Surinam toad--a Scottish physician--naturalist in Russia.

The Toad Bufo marinus as a Potential Mechanical Vector of Eggs of Ascaris lumbricoides

The Surinam toad (Bufo marinus) is common along the Pacific Colombian coast. All specimens examined were found to contain eggs of the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides). The area studied is heavily polluted with human excrement. When B. marinus toads in the laboratory were fed human feces containing eggs of A. lumbricoides, viable eggs passed through the intestine. B. marinus is a potential mechanical vector for the dissemination of A. lumbricoides. Hoffman and Janer (1941) reported the Surinam toad Bufo marinus in Puerto Rico to be passing viable ova of Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, and Schistosoma mansoni. They explained their findings by the coprophagic habits of the toads and by the ingestion of coprophagic insect larvae living in human excreta containing the above-mentioned ova. Other means whereby the toads obtain A. lumbricoides eggs may be through the ingestion of flies (Roberts, 1934; Shimizu, 1952; Kagioke, 1955); dungbeetles (Miller, Chi-Rodriguez, and Nichols, 1961), which have been shown to be mechanical vectors of these eggs; and cockroaches which have been shown by Bonfante, Faust, and Giraldo (1961) to be probable potential mechanical disseminators of the same eggs in Cali, Colombia. Gonzales-Mugaburu (personal communication) found Ascaris-like and Trichuris-like eggs in the intestinal tract of B. marinus at a field station in the coastal tropical rain forest of Colombia. This field station represents an arthropod-borne virus research section in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia, and is located about 40 km south of the Pacific port city of Buenaventura on the Raposo River. Human habitations occur only along the Received for publication 2 July 1963. * Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Valle, Cali, Colombia. t Department of Science, Colegio Bolivar, Cali, Colombia. river levees, and sanitary arrangements are practically unknown in this primitive jungle

Additional Observations on Breeding Behavior of the Surinam Toad, Pipa pipa

Gabon et de la Guin6e Francaise (Region de Kouroussa). Bull. Mus. Hist. Nat. 8:404-17. PARKER, H. W. 1933. Some West African snakes. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (10), 12:544-8, figs. 1-2. 1936. Dr. Karl Jordan's Expedition to South West Africa and Angola: Herpetological collections. Nov. Zool. 40:115-46, figs. 42-43. ( i . . : . WIrrE, G. F. DE. 1962. Genera des serpents du Congo et du Ruanda-Urundi. Ann. Mus. Roy. Afriq. Centr., ser. 8vo., Zool. 104:203 pp., figs. 1-94, pls. i-xv.

On the Mating and Egg-Laying Behavior of the Surinam Toad, Pipa pipa

IN an earlier paper (Rabb and Snedigar, 1960) some features of reproduction and development in the Surinam toad (Pipa pipa) were described as observed in captive animals at the Chicago Zoological Park during the spring of 1959. The same pair bred again during the night of March 2-3, 1960, under the conditions previously detailed. This time we were able to observe and photograph the oviposition, which has long been a mystery and a subject for speculation. As before, the preliminary amplexus was prolonged for at least 24 and possibly as long as 30 hours. In amplexus the male clasped the female about the lower abdomen firmly with his forearms, with his wrists burrowed

Observations on Breeding and Development of the Surinam Toad, Pipa pipa

Observations on Breeding and Development of the Surinam Toad, Pipa pipa

XLII.—The brood-cavities of the Surinam toad

(1896). XLII.—The brood-cavities of the Surinam toad. Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Vol. 18, No. 105, pp. 270-275.