Natural History Wanderings

The New York TImes reports

You’ve heard of a “frog in your throat,” but probably not like this.

Similarly sticky secretions are found among other frogs as well as salamanders. The animals use this natural super glue to foil both predators and overcurious scientists. The mechanism behind this speedy adhesive — including how it evolved in unrelated amphibians — had been a mystery, Dr. Roelants said. In research published last month in Nature Communications, he and his team provided an answer: Noodle-like proteins found across the amphibian family tree have been adapted by a number of species to make their own fast-acting glue.

Read more at How Glue Helps Frogs Out of Sticky Situations