Hilarious Fast-Moving Belly Flop Lets Frogs Walk on Water
Frogs use a surprising belly flop technique to glide across water, leaving scientists intrigued by their unique locomotion method
Frogs, Northern Cricket Frog, Virginia Tech, Porpoising, Amphibians, Water
Blacksburg: You won’t believe how frogs are getting around on water! Instead of just hopping, these little guys are doing this wild belly flop thing. It’s like they’re skipping stones, but way funnier.
So, here’s the deal: when they land, they sink a bit but then spring back up. It’s a bit like a dolphin jumping in and out of the waves, but with frogs. Talia Weiss, an engineer at Virginia Tech, is studying this quirky behavior.
She mentioned that the term “skittering” was first used ages ago to describe how frogs seem to hop across water. But now, they want to nail down a proper definition for it. It’s been seen for years, but no one really knew how they did it.
One of the stars of this show is the northern cricket frog, which is pretty common in North America. Weiss and her team used super-fast cameras to catch these frogs in action, jumping on both land and water.
What they found was super cool! Each time the frog lands, it actually goes under the water for a moment, kind of like a belly flop. They call this motion “porpoising.” It’s all about that quick push-off to get back up, and it happens in a flash.
It looks like they’re gliding, but they’re actually dunking themselves repeatedly. How wild is that? But there are still questions. Jake Socha, another engineer at Virginia Tech, pointed out how easy it is to be tricked by these fast movements.
He’s curious why only some frogs do this porpoising thing. Is it because of their size or something special about their jumps? We’re all waiting for more research to shed light on these mysteries.
This fascinating study was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, and it’s definitely got everyone buzzing!