The waxed monkey frog ( Phyllomedusa sauvagii ) is a curious animal that owes its name to the way it moves through its arboreal habitat, since it stretches its legs instead of jumping. This type of scrolling gives it the appearance of a tiny green monkey.
Another of the most striking aspects of this frog resides in its shiny and rough skin, due to a waxy substance produced by glands on its back and that the frog distributes with its legs throughout its body to reduce the loss of water by evaporation.
This substance, secreted by this and other frogs of the genus Phyllomedusa , contains such a wealth of antimicrobial and analgesic compounds that it led the discoverer of serotonin, Vittorio Erspamer, to say that this group of frogs constitute “an enormous deposit of bioactive peptides” .
However, “frog juice” was already known and used by various ethnic groups in Brazil, of which the Katukina ethnic group from the state of Acre is probably the best known. Healers use the cutaneous secretion of the “kambô” frog ( Phyllomedusa bicolor ), which they obtain by pinching the animal’s back. This milky substance is used to improve hunters’ visual perception and to treat certain diseases, as it helps the body’s defenses.
In fact, among the substances extracted from the secretion of these frogs are the antimicrobials dermaseptin and dermotoxin and the analgesics deltorphin and dermorphin. The latter is thirty to forty times more potent than morphine .
Illegal uses
In 2012 the New York Times revealed that dermorphine was being used on racehorses, as it stimulates them and increases their resistance to pain. This procedure, in addition to being illegal, is very dangerous for the animal’s health because, by not feeling pain, the horse continues with its activity and can suffer severe injuries.
The problem is that, although there are methods to detect the presence of dermorphine in thoroughbreds, the chemical structure of the drug can be modified in a relatively simple way by replacing a part of its molecule with a similar one, which makes it more difficult. to be discovered by doping control laboratories.
Julio de Castro, under the pseudonym Bushsnob, publishes a blog where he describes his travels and experiences around the world.
