It is no secret that frogs are masters of jumping.
New Scientist claims that new research has shown that they “have a unique skeleton made for jumping that evolved over hundreds of millions of years, new research has shown.”
This is a mixture of fact and fiction.
The fact is that the frog’s skeleton “allows them to jump horizontally or vertically…
Precise control over their long hind legs allows the amphibians to achieve an ‘amazing’ range of jump angles, from near-horizontal to almost vertical.”
New Scientist was commenting on research on the red-legged running frog (Kassina maculata), recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
NS uses words like amazing (twice) and astonishingly to describe the skills of this African frog and does not attempt to describe its assumed evolution.