The app can identify the species of a frog judging from its croaks
The scientists at the Australian Museum came up with a unique idea to save the country’s endangered frogs. It consists of an app developed by IBM which listens to various kinds of croaks, and then identifies the species of frog it came from. Such a tool is perfect for discovering areas where endangered species are hiding, so that people can take measures to protect them.
The app identifies frog croaks just like Shazam does with music
Through the release of this app, the scientists want to encourage everyone to start a national effort to count the frogs living in the country. By using such a quick and efficient tool, they think they can perform the task in no time.
The app in question is called FrogID, and the mechanism behind it resembles the one which powers Shazam, the popular tool which can identify music. When they hear frogs nearby, people can open the app and let it listen to the croaks. Then, it will identify the species the frogs belong to. However, the users need to have their location on for the app to work.
This is one of the most effective ways to protect frogs
This is possibly the most effective way to identify frog species which live in certain areas. It’s hard to discover a species just by looking at a frog from a distance. This happens mostly because their front legs bear the distinctive traits.
Australia hosts 240 species of frogs which are natives to the continent. Unfortunately, five of them are labeled are critically endangered, 14 as endangered, 10 as vulnerable, and four have already went extinct. One of the best ways to protect would be to know where they live, as the scientists explained.
“One of the major obstacles in preserving frogs is a lack of knowledge.”
Also, researchers hope that this app will help users identify the croaks of frogs which stayed hidden for many decades. The peppered tree frog, for instance, is a tiny specimen measuring only two centimeters, and they even fear it might have gone extinct. Given its size, it’s hard to tell, so using FrogID might help people identify its traces.
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