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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

How frogs became green — again, and again, and again

A technique for blending into green foliage arose independently in many lineages of tree frogs.
Boana punctata frog. Side, front and bottom view.

Blue-green lymph (visible on frog’s underside) and small amounts of yellow skin pigment combine to bestow a variety of green colours on the polka-dot tree frog. Credit: Santiago R. Ron

The vivid blue-green hue of hundreds of frog species allows the animals to ‘disappear’ amid green foliage — thanks to a molecular trick that arose multiple times over amphibian history.

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Nature 583, 495 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02103-z

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