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Post by brimstonefox on Apr 3, 2007 10:59:48 GMT
Hi, I though there might be a few people interested in this.... I have a large Rana Temporaria population in and around my garden which moves between my very small pond and a small stream which runs along the bottom. The warm weather recently had them all up and about and spawning. Shortly afterwards, I found that a significant number of the frogs had what looked like grey blisters covering much of their skin. I made some enquiries and have discovered my frogs are suffering from frog herpes! "Not a lot is known about this disease as it has not been properly studied. It causes skin lesions (wart-like lesions) in adult common frogs around the spawning period. It appears to regress as the weather gets warmer without harming the frogs (although it is unknown if it causes problems for other life-stages). It would be interesting to learn more about the number of places this disease is seen and how widespread it is in the UK. (I suspect that it is fairly widespread.) The disease is known from mainland Europe. It was first described in agile frogs (Rana dalmatina) in Italy, and has been found also in this species in Switzerland." There is a photo at the following web address, if anyone is interested. canterburyfrogs.moonfruit.com/
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