Research using DNA helps us to understand frog populations better so in many cases we can help conserve them more effectively. Together with my colleague Dr Cathy Walton, I have been developing DNA techniques for evaluating the genetic status of several species so that different populations or separate ‘species’ can be identified for individual conservation.
The year before last we went to the north of Thailand to assess various amphibian populations and to trial collecting DNA samples by simply swabbing the frogs’ mouths. The fact that we won’t have to take a single blood sample from a live frog to do our research is key, as it’s very important to us that all our work is completely non-invasive. The procedure worked a treat and afterwords all the samples were highly usable in the lab. It was my first time in Thailand and it was a really wonderful trip. Above is a picture of Cathy and I collecting a sample from a large Racophorous tree frog, R. nigropalmatus (pictured).
We were staying with extremley kind people belonging to a hill tribe in a remote area in the far North. It was very cool, and so were the frogs that we were looking at – large flying frogs that had the most amazing colours and webbing on their hands and feet! Fantastic, they reminded me of a species I have worked quite extensively with from Costa Rica, Agalychnis spurrelli.
See Also:
MY RESEARCH & MY MOST RECENT DNA RESEARCH-BASED PUBLICATION
NEW HERPETOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST (ASIA)
HYLA (Treefrog) GENETIC PAPER OF INTEREST
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FROG BLOG MANCHESTER 
my name is Lance on jrassic park can you realy use frog DNA call back
Hello Lance, thanks very much for you email. It would be exciting if we could bring back dinosaurs like in Jurassic Park, but sadly im afraid we can’t use frog DNA to help us to do this. Dinosaurs are extinct and cannot be brought back. Even with modern species that go extinct, we don’t really have any chance of bringing them back, which is why it is so very important we try and save the animals we have nowadays from becoming extinct. If you have any more questions for me about frogs it would be great hear from you again. with best wishes, Andrew