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Hey all,
I was talking dart frogs with a co-worker who loves to argue and play the Devil's advocate. She has a B.S. in bio-chemisty and Math. Is a Medical Doctor and Cardiac Interventional Fellow (which she jokingly says) makes her an expert on everything.
The topic was batrachotoxins in dart frogs. I argued that it was diet related and she argued that it could be a catacholamine response. I.E. Fight or flight induced. Her hypothesis is that these frogs produce toxins in the wild due to their constant fight for survival, and that the reason they lose their toxicity in captivity is because of the lack of predators in captivity. The constant fight for survival is gone, so the ability to produce toxins is atrophied. In the professional breeders series there is a great chapter on batrachotoxins and there is mention of terriblis being toxic for months (it may be years) after captivity. I agrued that dart toxins vary seasonally, and her reply was that so do predators. Ergo various catacholomine responses would vary.
This of course supporting her weak albeit interesting arguement.
So lacking a volume of John Daly's published works on me. Lets have some fun and argue. And please please please. This is for fun. No "you're an idiot" comments besides thats too easy.
I was talking dart frogs with a co-worker who loves to argue and play the Devil's advocate. She has a B.S. in bio-chemisty and Math. Is a Medical Doctor and Cardiac Interventional Fellow (which she jokingly says) makes her an expert on everything.
The topic was batrachotoxins in dart frogs. I argued that it was diet related and she argued that it could be a catacholamine response. I.E. Fight or flight induced. Her hypothesis is that these frogs produce toxins in the wild due to their constant fight for survival, and that the reason they lose their toxicity in captivity is because of the lack of predators in captivity. The constant fight for survival is gone, so the ability to produce toxins is atrophied. In the professional breeders series there is a great chapter on batrachotoxins and there is mention of terriblis being toxic for months (it may be years) after captivity. I agrued that dart toxins vary seasonally, and her reply was that so do predators. Ergo various catacholomine responses would vary.
This of course supporting her weak albeit interesting arguement.
So lacking a volume of John Daly's published works on me. Lets have some fun and argue. And please please please. This is for fun. No "you're an idiot" comments besides thats too easy.