It's just frogs, I swear!

.Imagine, you're standing in line at an airport security checkpoint, waiting for your shoes to be searched, when you notice something strange about the gentlemen in front of you. Their carry-on luggage is croaking It could happen. In fact, it did happen, as herpetologist Joseph R. Mendleson and Ron Gagliardo, rescuing endangered frogs from the Panamanian rain forest, asked to bring their specimen-packed suitcases aboard as carry-on.

In April, I wrote about a program starting in Chicago, in which scientists were racing to beat the extinction of frogs, by collecting them into an "ark." (I'll repost it here, for convenience... also because I can never have enough frog pictures.) It now appears that the program is in full force--and, with airport security ruckus--gaining the attention of the New York Times:

A guard in the Panama City airport was not satisfied with the letters of explanation the biologists presented, even though they included permission from the Panamanian government to collect the frogs.

He had them open a container that held the Michael Jordan of jumpers, a species the biologists liked to call rocket frogs.

"I open it and, sure enough, the frog goes bing!" Dr. Mendelson said.

Fortunately, Mr. Gagliardo caught it before it landed on anyone in the amazed crowd that had gathered.

Brenda Goodman of the Times reported more than just traveler's woes:

They went into the forest at night, since most frogs are nocturnal, slogging down a river in hip waders and carrying powerful flashlights. After four separate trips, some lasting only 48 hours, the two men, along with a native guide who possessed stealth and fast hands, managed to gather 600 frogs, shooting for 20 males and 20 females of each species to ensure good genetic variation in their breeding colonies.

To feed them, they rented a house and left piles of rotting fruit in the corners to attract flies. "It was pretty stinky," Mr. Gagliardo said.

Oh, fun stuff. The frogs had to be collected in something of a blind panic--there were simply no years of careful planning available. Sometimes, urgent necessity leads to resourceful invention. While this appeared to be one of those times, they chose the right man for the job. Mr. Gargliardo has been collecting frogs since childhood, and it is rumored that he has the touch:

He quickly realized, for example, that a translucent species of frog collected from a cloud forest wasn't breeding because it needed, well, clouds.

With a cool-misting humidifier he bought on eBay and some plastic pipe, Mr. Gagliardo filled the glass frogs' tank with a steady whisper of white water vapor. Once the tank, which sits in a corner of a behind-the-scenes room at Zoo Atlanta, was bubbling over with a creeping mist like a witch's caldron, tadpoles followed in short order.

It sounds to me as if this Ark has the right Noah on hand.

Note: Image by Erik S. Lesser for the New York Times.