Rheobatrachus silus -- Southern Gastric Brooding Frog

The Southern Gastric Brooding frog lived exclusively in the rainforests of the Conondale and Blackall Ranges, northwest of Brisbane, Australia. These amazing frogs could actually shut down their gastric juices while rearing their young inside their stomachs! They therefore held great promise for advances in human medicine, as research on these frogs may have resulted in a cure for peptic ulcers, which affect 25 million people in the United States alone. Unfortunately, the gastric-brooding frogs vanished within a few years of being discovered by scientists. The health of humans and frogs is clearly intertwined.

Photo by Owen Kelly
Text by Kerry Kriger