Freeze and reanimate
Saturday, June 07, 2008
I wish I were one of these tree frogs today....
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WASHINGTON — This is the way a wood frog freezes: First, as the temperature drops below 32 degrees, ice crystals start to form just beneath the frog's skin. The normally pliant and slimy amphibian becomes — for lack of a better word — slushy. Then, if the mercury continues to fall, ice races inward through the frog's arteries and veins. Its heart and brain stop working, and its eyes freeze to a ghostly white. "Imagine an ice cube. Paint it green," and you've got the wood frog in winter, said Ken Storey, a professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. The frog is solid to the touch and makes a small thud when dropped. But it is not dead. When a thaw comes, the frog is able to melt back into its normal state over a period of several hours, restart its heart and hop away, unscathed.
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