for cooler mutation pictures, click on the image above

  In LeSueur, Minnesota, August 1995, students from the New Country
School found the first sightings of deformed frogs. There were many
frogs with deformed, missing or extra body parts discovered and the
researchers were very concerned because the health of frogs is
closely linked to the health of the environment. Frogs are sensitive
to pollution, because they live at the meeting of two environments --
land and water -- and they can easily absorb pollutants through their
skin. The decline of frogs is an early warning sign of the damage
that is being caused to the environment. A frog’s life cycle
requires them to reproduce in shallow, small (Type I, II, or III)
wetlands that dry down or winterkill so they are fishless. Frogs
could be exposed to a toxicant as tadpoles in the small wetland, as
adults feeding on the landscape, and in the deeper water of the
overwintering lake or river. Because frogs are so sensitive to the
environment, pollution of the land and water, may be contributing to
the mutations and decline in population of the frogs and other
amphibians and reptiles.

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