The Frog with the Shiny Nose

In June 1997, while visiting the Newton Abbot animal fair in Devon, local mystery animal expert Jonathan Downes spotted a cage containing three 25-pound tree frogs. They supposedly originated in northern Cameroon in West Africa. Downes was intrigued by the amphibians. He couldn't identify the species. Each frog had a blue spot on its face, and the seller explained, to Downes's even greater surprise, that the spot glowed in the dark, presumably to attract insects. Downes, however, decided 25 pounds was too much and resisted the temptation. He didn't buy the frogs and soon bitterly regretted his decision. When he later described the mysterious frogs to various amphibian and reptile experts, he discovered that scientists had never heard of luminescent frogs. He therefore lost the opportunity to acquire a specimen that may have belonged to an unknown species and, moreover, was endowed with an unusual property, unique among the great variety of frogs in the world.