The 'Paradox' of Poisonous Frog Resistance against Their Own Toxins Explained (3 of 16) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

The 'Paradox' of Poisonous Frog Resistance against Their Own Toxins Explained (3 of 16)

Caption

The phantasmal poison frog, Epipedobates anthonyi, is the original source of epibatidine, discovered by John Daly in 1974. In fact, epibatidine is named for frogs of this genus. Epibatidine has not been found in any animal outside of Ecuador, and its ultimate source, proposed to be an arthropod, remains unknown. This frog was captured at a banana plantation in the Azuay province in southern Ecuador in August 2017. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Sept. 22, 2017, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by R.D. Tarvin at University of Texas at Austin in Austin, Texas, and colleagues was titled, "Interacting amino acid replacements allow poison frogs to evolve epibatidine resistance."

Credit

Rebecca Tarvin

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