🚀 go-pugleaf

C <THCLAX00@UKCC.UKY.EDU> wrote:

>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>Dear Sir!
>
>As I have been informed in summer 1996 hundreds of people reported
>thousands and southands of frogs with significant deformities, ranging from
>extra legs to missing eyes in Minnesota Lakes. I wish to contact to people,
>those studied these frogs. It seems to me that some exemplares of frogs
>should be stored anywhere so they are might be available to investigation.
>Whether one or another cause made its influence on the frogs development,
>these abnormal animals might be studied from morphological point of view.
>I am a morphologists who study development of legs and would be happy to
analise
>some of these frogs with anomalies of the hind legs, specially with the
>ansence of legs and supernumerary legs.
>
>Sincerely yours,
>
>-------------------------------------------
>Yegor B. Malashichev
>Department of Vertebrate Zoology,
>Universitetskaya nab., 7/9
>St. Petersburg State University,
>St. Petersburg, 199034, Russia.
>Phone: +7(812)2189689
>       +7(812)1131680
>E-Mail: Yegor@EM1915.spb.edu
>-------------------------------------------


http://cnn.com/EARTH/9803/16/deformed.frogs.ap/index.html

Partial Excerpt:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Vitamin A compounds in lake water may be at least
partly responsible for frog deformities being found in Minnesota and
more than two dozen other states, researchers said Monday.

The lead researcher, David Gardiner of the University of California at
Irvine, said he suspected retinoids from the moment the Environmental
Protection Agency asked him to look at pictures of deformed frogs
about a year ago.

Retinoids are vitamin A compounds and include retinoic acid, a hormone
that regulates several key aspects of development in vertebrates.
Excess amounts of retinoic acid produce birth defects in humans.

also:  http://cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/9803/17/mn.13.html