Where Is Her Prince Charming?
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Valerie Clark licks frogs because she loves them.
“Sometimes I just can’t wait till I get back to the lab to do the chemistry, and I want to get an idea if there is something nasty,” she said. Clark’s habit isn’t quite as rare, or as crazy, as it may sound.
Research opportunities in remote tropical forests are often limited, and only so many specimens can be taken back to the lab for detailed chemical analysis.
“[But] I don’t recommend this,” the biologist cautioned, “because if you lick the wrong frog it can be very bad.”
Clark, 28, who recently earned her master’s degree at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, studies the ecology and evolution of frog chemical defenses.
Her research comes at a critical time, when many frog species are in worldwide decline, victims of habitat destruction and a deadly fungus called chytrid.
“Some frogs smell so repulsive that you just wouldn’t even consider licking them,” Clark said.
These days you’ll often find Clark in Madagascar, attempting to trace frog skin alkaloids—naturally occurring nitrogen compounds—backward through the food chain to their original sources.
Clark’s love affair with frogs began while exploring parks near her home in suburban Ellicott City, Maryland. “I got into them at age seven or eight, just like most kids like to catch things and check them out,” she said. “I kind of never grew out of that. “As you can imagine, kids made fun of my love affair with frogs, but who could blame them? I am a bit different.”
Valerie’s father Bill built a backyard frog pond where his daughter could raise tadpoles. The house soon became packed with a dozen terrariums filled with frogs, snakes, and other creatures, Valerie recalled. By 1990 Valerie was entering her hand-raised frogs into local jumping races.
When a photo of her blowing on her favorite frog—to encourage jumping—landed in the Baltimore Sun, it was both exciting and worrisome: She had skipped school for the contest. Luckily, the school principal “thought it was downright hilarious,” she said.
Today Valerie is still kissing frogs in search of the one that will turn into her prince.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryu5Yu0nQuU