KEY POINTS:
Bisect and digest this - a seven-year-old Waikato boy has discovered a six-legged frog and adopted it as his pet.
But biological science is now wanting to get its hands on the green little critter before it croaks.
At the weekend, schoolboy Brett Wilson, from Arohena in Otorohanga
district, made a new home for his pet from wood and rocks.
Brett's mother, Vanessa, said that Waikato University biologist Dr Nick Ling had offered $100 in exchange for the frog. However, Brett had become too attached to the amphibian.
"He's not quite ready to give it up to biological science yet. It will be taken to school [for show and tell] this week."
Brett had come across the quirky find while fishing for tadpoles in a pond on a friend's dairy farm.
Surprise turned to fascination when it was discovered the animal had six legs instead of four.
In addition to the normal pair of front legs, the frog has four rear legs, three of which are on its right side.
One of the three right legs appears fused to the body and stretches from underneath the belly up around the amphibian's back.
It can only just use the legs to paddle around, but the chances of taking a giant leap are almost nil. It can use its legs only to flip, and commonly lands on its back.
"It's just a freak of nature," Mrs Wilson said. "There's no reason it should be like that. Everything else we've caught down there is normal. There's no toxins or algae in the water. It's just like a muddy pond, that's all."
Dr Ling said he did not wish to put any pressure on the family to donate the frog to his lab, although he was keen to investigate the rare find.
It would be x-rayed so the bone structure could be looked at, and samples of its skin and other tissue would be used for DNA analysis.
"I haven't seen this kind of thing directly myself. Occasionally deformed frogs turn up, but there are not any major incidents in New Zealand," he said
Hind legs were the most commonly affected part of a frog's body after being exposed to chemicals.
In North America, frog deformities were the result of pesticides, although Dr Ling said use of such chemicals on dairy farms were unlikely.
He was keen to visit the site where the frog was found so further analysis could be undertaken.
There was a chance the abnormality could be put down to a random glitch in nature.
"We see spontaneous mutations in animals just as we see mutations in the human species from time to time."
New Zealand's frog population was following a global trend of decline. "We're not sure of the reasons, but one possibility is because of the introduction of the predator mosquito fish."
