Some frogs just can’t stick the landing.
After launching into a leap, pumpkin toadlets careen through the air as if flung from a toddler’s fist. They roll, cartwheel or backflip and then plummet to the ground, often belly flopping or crash-landing on their backs.
“I’ve looked at a lot of frogs and these are the weirdest things I’ve ever seen,” says Richard Essner, Jr., a vertebrate zoologist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Essner and colleagues now propose an explanation for why the tiny frogs are such clumsy jumpers. The animals lack the proper gyroscopic equipment to sense small changes in rotation, the team suggests June 15 in Science Advances.
Brachycephalus pernix frogs have trouble sensing small changes in rotation, which makes landing jumps difficult, a new study suggests. The frogs can roll, cartwheel or backflip through the air, and then hit the ground on their backs or bellies.
When Essner saw videos of Brachycephalus frogs’ awkward aerial maneuvers, he was so shocked that he hopped on a plane to study the animals with his colleagues in Brazil. Small enough to fit on a person’s thumbnail, the frogs are tricky to find in the wild. Scientists listen for the amphibians’ high-pitched, buzzy calls and then scoop leaf litter into a bag, hoping to find a few toadlets.