Some Exceptionally Smart Frogs Around the Amazon

Frog intelligence usually doesn't register with the Nobel comittee each year but this frog has figured out something humans never managed since ants won't bother it, ever.  (Science Daily:  Amazonian frog has its own ant repellent)

The frog has a chemical on its skin which repels the ants and they don't bite even while they bite everything else.  Around the Amazon, an ant has to be seriously tough to make it and this particular type of ant is not only tough but aggressive.  They will eat other frogs they find but not Lithodytes lineatus, our extra-intelligent Frog of the Day.

Note:  there isn't a cooler name for it the article has a picture.

Lithodytes lineatus.
Credit: Albertina Pimentel Lima

- Science Daily

The intelligence in the critter is how it repels the ants since it's not so much repelling as telling them we're friends so don't screw with us and they do that chemically.

Leaf-cutting ants use chemical odors, such as pheromones, to recognize and communicate with members of their colony.  Barros' team therefore speculated that the skin of Lithodytes lineatusmust also be covered with a similar type of chemical that makes leaf-cutting ants recognize them as "friendly" and cheats them into allowing the frog into their midst.

- Science Daily

Skipping some details, we get to the punchline:

"Our results demonstrate that the skin of frog Lithodytes lineatus has chemicals that prevent the attack of two species of leaf-cutting ants," says Barros.  "It therefore seems that Lithodytes lineatus has chemical skin compounds that are recognized by ants of genus Atta, which may allow for coexistence between ants and frogs."

- Science Daily

This is the kind of stuff which gets Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist, screaming out his window into the night, "Eureka, I have found the Lord!!!"

Note:  Richard Dawkins is the most obsessed Bible-bashing whackjob on the face of the Earth.

Dawkins made his bones in genetics with how evolutionary similarities, dependencies, and the like can be possible since they don't come about through standard Darwinian evolution.

In this case, there's a chemical pheromone ants recognize as 'friend or foe' so the ants must be able to make that themselves and have the genetic kit to do that so they can prove themselves as friends.  Where Dawkins gets all excited is in observing the frog must have evolved the same genetic kit to produce the pheromone but how could it know to do that when it doesn't require the pheromone for anything else.

Here at the Rockhouse, we see some seriously clever froggery and the scientific considerations of it go way past how to keep ants away from your picnic since many researchers have been pursuing branches from Dawkins' original research for years although we doubt they spend much time considering his Bible bashing.

wtf, Dawkins?  Seriously, wtf?

Maybe he perceives himself now as a serial religion killer.  First, I will whack Christianity.  Then I will whack Islam.  Then I will whack Hindu but I'm not sure if I can since they will just reincarnate.  Drat.