News for tadpole and frog tasters

National Geographic published an article called "Why Some Poison Frogs Taste Bittersweet When Licked", which references their earlier report called "For Frog-Licking Scientist, the Tongue Says It All". It's based on the study

"Sex-Related Differences in Alkaloid Chemical Defenses of the Dendrobatid Frog Oophaga pumilio from Cayo Nancy, Bocas del Toro, Panama," Ralph A. Saporito, Maureen A. Donnelly, Anne A. Madden, H. Martin Garraffo and Thomas F. Spande. Natural Products, March 26, 2010, Volume 73, Issue 3, pp 317–321.

(Thanks to investigator Shoichi F for bringing this to our attention.)

One can, if one wants, see connections between this research and the much earlier (and Ig Nobel Prize winning) study

"On the Comparative Palatability of Some Dry-Season Tadpoles from Costa Rica." Richard Wassersug, The American Midland Naturalist, vol. 86, no. 1, July 1971, pp. 101-9.