Pacific Spirit Marine Institute
Friday, July 25, 2008
If you were an Odorrana tormota frog you could just tune that sound out by closing the canals in your ears.
The discovery that the Odorrana tormota species of frogs can close down their Eustachian tubes is being described as “Bizarre” by UofI at Urbana-Champaign researcher Albert Feng.
These little frogs live near a noisy hot springs in central China. They can tune out low frequency background noise of rushing waters to pick up the calls of mates or rivals.
The Odorrana tormota is also known as the concave-eared torrent frog.
Meanwhile…
The oh so much smarter humans go to great lengths to annoy surrounding motorists with their bass beat. They can even let the fathers of their dates know they nearing the house from 8 blocks away, thereby eliminating the need to sit in front of the house and honk!
While the Odorrana tormota would like to be able to hear the chirps of its potential mates, the reportedly more advanced species of humanoid would like to blast his girlfriends hair from her head.
I’ll assume he does this in an effort to make her less attractive to other potential mates. She will also be less attractive to other mates if she is constantly saying, “what?”
Take if from an old rock’n roller kids…turn down the bass. It will be much nicer to hear your sweetheart whisper in your ear, “I love you”, and equally as nice to hear your grandchildren’s first words.
The discovery of how these little creatures control what they hear may help researchers design better hearing aids in the future. There will be a big market for all those destroying their hearing today.
Photo thanks: Margaret Kowalczyk
Labels: Bass, China, Odorrana tormota, frogs, video
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
Ever wish you could crush that car blasting so much bass YOUR chest thumps to the beat?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
On May 14, KGET channel17in Bakersfield CA, reported another strange infestation of frogs. So many frogs in fact one couple in the Rosedale neighborhood said, “You’d see cars go by, and see them slinging up frogs like they were rocks.” KGET reports the forgs have literally spread out through this entire neighborhood.
On May 9, thousands of toads were spotted in Jiangsu province, in China. The picture is erriely simaler, except for the crowd on bicycles as that in the video I have posted about the frogs invading in bakersfield.
It is reported the same phenomenon was also noticed in some of the areas affected by the massive earthquake in China on May 13. There were similar toad stories throughout China in the days leading up to the devasting earthquake, Mianzhu, China being one.
It is also interesting to note that swarms of frogs or toads were reported before the 1989 Loma Prieta quake in California.
One geologist, Jim Berkland,has a 75% accuracy rate when it comes to predicting earthquakes. Berkland thinks animal behaviour is one of the key indicators of coming quakes. One thing he’s been tracking for decades is the number of lost pet entries in newspapers prior to events. The number of lost pets, cats especially seem to take a sharp curve upwards in the days just before an earthquake. Berkland also says high tides, floods. Reservoir water storage is another factor that contributes to seismic events. Dams are built to withstand the seismic potential the structures themselves pose to an area.
Check out this information on the 3 Gorges Dam project and the seismic research, precautions, and seismic supervision system in place to supervise an earthquake caused by the reservoir water storage that was set up before the water storage at the ‘Three Gorges Project.’ Really interesting information!
Labels: China, Frogs Bakersfield, Toads Bakersfield, earthquake, frogs, reservoir water storage seismic
© 2009, Pacific Spirit Marine Institute.
If It Jumps Like A Toad, Croaks Like A Toad…it’s probably not a duck.
