JUNE 11,
2019
Frogs aren't
meant to be able to store a mental map in their brains. 20 years ago, Lainy Day
from the University of Mississippi, USA, tested the place memory of amphibians
and lizards, but none appeared capable of forming complex spatial memories.
Frogs' brains were just too simple to carry a map it seemed. However, Sabrina
Burmeister from the University of North Carolina recalls remarking at the time
that Day should test the memories of poison frogs. After locating tiny pools of
water up in the forest canopy, poison frog parents recall the location and
return to deliver their freshly hatched tadpoles to develop safely in their new
abodes. So, when East Carolina University ecologist Kyle Summers recently sent
some green-and-black poison dart frogs (Dendrobates auratus) to
Burmeister, she and graduate student Yuxiang Liu decided to investigate the
remarkable amphibian's spatial awareness. They publish their discovery that the
brain of the poison dart frog is sophisticated enough to form a mental map of
its surroundings in Journal of Experimental Biology.
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