Frogs are also being born with gross deformities with alarming frequency. And scientists aren't sure why any of it is happening. In the summer of 1995, some middle school students studying frogs in a farm pond in southern Minnesota made a sickening discovery. Half the dozen or so northern leopard frogs they found that day were malformed with missing or extra limbs. Since then, similar reports have come from all over North America, including New England leopard frogs, wood frogs, bullfrogs, green frogs, spring peepers, American toads as well as salamanders with severe deformities.
Deformed amphibians are nothing new.
They occur naturally and have been reported for more than two centuries. But the frequency with which they are being found recently is new, and it's creating fear. And that is a reasonably big scare. If it can mutate a developing frog, it may be able to mutate anything. There are people out there who want to say that kind of thing.