Why Save Frogs?

Another reason to conserve frogs and other amphibians need is for medical research. Amphibians can secrete numerous different chemicals from their skin, and many of these have been used in pharmaceuticals. For example, frogs from the subfamily Phyllomedusinae secrete a group of antimicrobial peptides, called medusins, from their skin, which do not harm blood cells like other chemicals do. Another incredible frog species is the phantasmal poison dart frog, which releases a toxin called epibatidine, a painkiller 200 times more potent than any that had been discovered before it. While epibatidine itself is too toxic to be used as a painkiller, scientists have been researching ways to alter the compound into safer chemicals. Other discoveries include bradykinin, released from fire-bellied toads, which can reduce high blood pressure, and caerin, from whites tree frogs, which can prevent the transmission of HIV. In fact, according Dr. Kerry Kriger and Michael Starkey, chair of the SAVE THE FROGS! advisory committee, “Approximately 10 percent of Nobel Prizes in Physiology and Medicine have been awarded to scientists whose research depended on amphibians." However, as more and more species of frogs disappear, so too will the discoveries that come with them. For instance,  the Northern Gastric Brooding frog, which can shut down the gastric juices in its stomach to raise its young there, was thought to have a cure for peptic ulcers, but went extinct before any cure could be found. By saving amphibian species, we are also opening up discoveries that could save human lives.