A species of frog is capable of making its skin transparent and its mechanism will surprise you.
Example of the translucent skin of these glass frogs. National Geographic Kids
They are not the best known specimens in the frog population, but it is true that once you have heard and seen what they are capable of, you will not be able to forget these curious glass frogs. And their name is not accidental, since they are able to show the inside of their body as a camouflage method that we had not been able to understand until recently, when a research published in the prestigious journal Science has shown us a secret kept for centuries inside. These amphibians, some of their relatives are in danger of extinctionThey never cease to amaze us.
The invisible frog is able to blend in with its environment and we have just discovered how it does it
It has been a team of scientistsled by the author of the study Carlos Taboada, belonging to the Duke University, those who have managed to understand how these animals manage to appear to be made of glass. The process seems to have to do with liverand it is that these frogs are able to store most of his Red blood cells in that organ when they want to camouflage. Usually, animals that can become transparent and practically disappear were more common underwater, with examples such as jellyfish or eel larvae. Now, even though light reflects differently in water than it does in air, we seem to understand the process better.
The experimentation carried out with these frogs, scientifically named as Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni, was developed in a laboratory where, through high calibration cameras, the transparency of the amphibians was measured. Usually, the path of blood through the bodyThanks to the hemoglobinmakes this one opaque. Only the ice fish has been able to remove hemoglobin from its blood, which is why it appears to be white.
It also seems that the activity of the frogs has a lot to do with their invisibility. In their natural habitat, in Central America, these animals spend the night hunting and eating, during which time they become more opaque. In the laboratory itself it has been verified that during the dayat which time they usually to sleepis when his skin becomes transparentbeing able blend in with your surroundings in a simpler way, avoiding being devoured by some of their predators, such as spiders or snakes. According to observations, these frogs are between 34% and 61% more transparent when sleeping than when they are active.
With respect to red blood cell countthe research team used a technique named photoacoustic imaging, which manages to map ultrasound waves when red blood cells absorb light. In it time to sleeplos livers of these amphibians had a 40% larger sizeGiven the accumulated red blood cells of the organism, cases a 90% of their total. At the moment, some scientists they continue to speculate about this type of frogs, wondering how they are able to accumulate many red blood cells without That appear clots. What is certain is that glass frogs are beings so extraordinary as to disappear from our sight.