Ok, so I heard about some species (especially of water dwelling animals) being able to switch genders, such as clown fish and some types of snails and lizards. But what a college student in California discovered a couple of months ago is really shocking. A common weed killer
(atrazine) which can easily get into and contaminate water, has been shown to switch the genders of frogs! The study was done on 40 all male frogs, forced to live in water contaminated with this weed killer as part of the experiment. By the end, 30% of the males started to act like females, even releasing chemicals to attract other males. In addition, 4 had high levels of estrogen (10%). 2 of these 4 frogs with high estrogen were dissected, and it was found that they had female reproductive organs as well. The other lucky 2 were allowed to mate with males and they actually successfully produced babies!
As weird/amusing/disturbing as you may find this, it is actually a bigger problem than just having to do with frogs. Any chemical that changes the ability or way animals reproduce
can actually threaten their survival as a species! Hopefully this study will help us as a nation to combat pollution and other environmental issues.
Check out the news article!
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