Love for the love frog? (Letters).The nocturnal singing of coquies is beloved in Puerto Rico, especially after several years of unexplained population decline ("Hawaii's Hated Frogs," SN: 1/4/03,p. 11). Is there any chance that the little coquies can be returned from Hawaii? MARLO MARLO Marine Liaison Officer A. LOYOLA, MAYAGUEZ, PUERTO RICO The Coqui Hawaiian Integration and Reeducation Reeducation may refer to:
Your article was extremely one-sided. In fact, many people here in Hawaii love the frogs' sound, and they may prove beneficial since they eat invasive insects. We need to develop humane environmental control methods, not cut-and-burn environmentalism, as has been proposed. SYDNEY ROSS SINGER, CHIRP, PAHOA, HAWAII This article confuses me. For years, I've been reading about the mysterious worldwide decline in frog populations. Also, why does caffeine kill off frogs and slugs but not insects? LORIEN DAVY, SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. Frogs seem to be disappearing in lots of places for a variety of reasons, from habitat loss to poisoning and introduction of new predators. As for caffeine, the compound easily penetrates frogs' and slugs' moist skin but not insects' hard exoskeleton exoskeleton /exo·skel·e·ton/ (-skel´e-ton) a hard structure formed on the outside of the body, as a crustacean's shell; in vertebrates, applied to structures produced by the epidermis, as hair, nails, hoofs, teeth, etc. .--J. RALOFF You ask the question "Whose dinner are the coquies stealing?" In fact, dinner for coquies or any other carnivore carnivore (kär`nəvôr'), term commonly applied to any animal whose diet consists wholly or largely of animal matter. In animal systematics it refers to members of the mammalian order Carnivora (see Chordata). in Hawaii contains mostly items among the 5,200 native insect species. The loss of insect species is an irreplaceable loss to world biodiversity. JAMES K. LIEBHERR, ITHACA Ithaca, city, United States Ithaca (ĭth`əkə), city (1990 pop. 29,541), seat of Tompkins co., S central N.Y., at the southern end of Cayuga Lake, in the Finger Lakes region; settled 1789, inc. as a city 1888. , N.Y. My wife and I find that the crickets are nosier than the frogs, and best of all, the mosquitoes have all but disappeared from our macadamia macadamia (măk'ədā`mēə), name for the nut of the Macadamia ternifolia, an evergreen tree native to Australia, but cultivated in Hawaii. The nuts, also called Queensland nuts, are eaten roasted or raw. orchard. If the frogs control the mosquitoes, maybe native birds at lower elevations can be saved from avian malaria. MICHAEL M. KRAUS, HILO, HAWAII |
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