Why Won't Bullfrogs Jump For Science?
Bullfrog Carl D. Howe via Wikimedia Commons The single best jump ever recorded by a laboratory bullfrog is 1.3 meters. Cuban tree frogs, on the other hand, can leap up to 1.7 meters. Scientists have previously explained this variation in maximum jump ability between different frogs as an evolutionary tradeoff: Bullfrogs can swim better. But what if the lab frogs were just faking it? A group of biologists at Brown University and Northeastern University wondered—how can the maximum jump distance of a bullfrog recorded in the scientific literature be so low, when a slightly less scientific source, the Guinness Book of World Records, puts a famed frog named "Rosie the Ribeter" as jumping at least 2 meters? To see whether frogs in the lab were really giving it their all, the researchers took a jaunt to the Calaveras County...