European Green Tree Frogs Are Normally Green,

so why have some started turning black?

photograph Germán Orizaola and Pablo Burraco, it all started in April of 1986, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine exploded, releasing approximately 100 times the energy released by the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and drastically altering the lives of both humans and wildlife in the surrounding area, in 2016, a team of Spanish researchers ventured into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to examine and study the influence of nuclear radiation on the local flora and fauna. One of the first animals they noticed were these dark-skinned frogs that looked and sounded like eastern tree frogs (Hyla orientalis), apart from the color. Eastern tree frogs are usually bright green, only these were much darker, and some specimens were actually pitch black. After analyzing the data, researchers concluded that the dark skin of the usually green tree frogs is a direct consequence of their adaptation to radiation levels. Chernobyl tree frogs have a much darker coloration than frogs outside the exclusion zone, and some are completely black,

“We consider the most plausible explanation to [why] frogs within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone [are changing colour] is that the extremely high radiation levels at the moment of the accident selected for frogs with dark skin,” the Spanish researchers wrote in the recently published study. The dark frogs survived the radiation better, bred better, and now, 10-15 generations from the nuclear disaster, they make up the majority of specimens found in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, especially in areas known to have been affected by high levels of radiation, “It was indeed the extraordinary selection pressure caused by ionizing radiation that directed the evolution of amphibians from green to black,” the study authors conclude, I guess nature always finds a way to adapt.