Miracle frogs

Frogs come alive in winter thaw

While the rivers and ponds are melting the ground remains frozen and under the leaf litter, someone is pulling off a miracle. 

This wooden frog is frozen solid, even his eyes are iced over. There's no puslse no breath. Slowly the warmth of spring begins to thaw, from the inside out. His heart starts beating. His brain lights up. And he begins to move. It turns out that the frog's liver pumped a syrupy natural anti-freeze into its cells in the fall. It kept its organs from freezing. Only the water between cells froze. After eight months frozen it's completely undamaged and leaping straight for the nearest pond. Now Alaska's least welcome yearly arrival slowly bursts from its watery home, the mosquito. And it immediately wants blood. Not even cold blooded frogs are immune. The number of mosquitoes here far outstrips that in any jungle on Earth.