The Use of Cognition by Amphibians Confronting Environmental Change: Examples from the Behavioral Ecology of Crawfish Frogs ().

Amphibian conservation concerns frequently center on the idea of 'saving' them, with the underlying assumption they are the passive victims of anthropogenic environmental change. But this approach ignores the physiological, biochemical, and behavioral flexibility amphibians have employed since they first evolved ~365 million years ago. One overlooked advantage amphibians possess in the struggle for survival, and one humans might use in their efforts to conserve them, is their brains share the same blueprint as human brains, which allows them to acquire knowledge and understanding through experiences-in other words, amphibians have cognitive capabilities that assist them in their effort to survive.

Sex-related differences in aging rate are associated with sex chromosome system in amphibians.

Sex-related differences in mortality are widespread in the animal kingdom. Although studies have shown that sex determination systems might drive lifespan evolution, sex chromosome influence on aging rates have not been investigated so far, likely due to an apparent lack of demographic data from clades including both XY (with heterogametic males) and ZW (heterogametic females) systems. Taking advantage of a unique collection of capture-recapture datasets in amphibians, a vertebrate group where XY and ZW systems have repeatedly evolved over the past 200 million years, we examined whether sex heterogamy can predict sex differences in aging rates and lifespans.