A biologist from Bowdoin College has published a research study on Wood frogs living in the pond located in the backyard of his house in Brunswick, Maine. Unfortunately, the study he worked on with scientists from the University of Tennessee dealt with a generation of frogs dying off from what the researchers believe to be a kind of ranavirus.

Nat Wheelwright, a biologist from Bowdoin College has published a research study on Wood frogs living in a pond located in the backyard of his house in Brunswick, Maine.

Unfortunately, the study he worked on with scientists from the University of Tennessee dealt with a generation of frogs dying off from what the researchers believe to be a kind of ranavirus.

Published in the scientific journal Herpetological Review, the report says that: “Twenty-one hours later, on the afternoon of 15 June a few surviving tadpoles were observed swimming slowly near the pond surface, but none was found alive by the end of the day.”

While the virus did not seem to affect other frog and reptile species living in the pond, it could spread beyond Wheelwright’s habitat and the mass death of the wood frog tadpoles could greatly affect future generations.

The study covers what is reportedly one of the largest and fastest mass death of frogs ever recorded in the state of Maine.