Smelly tree frogs repel mosquitoes

Australian researchers have found that green tree frogs secrete a pungent natural mosquito repellent, but don't expect it to be on a store shelf near you any time soon.

Craig Williams of Cook University in Queensland, and his team of researchers, found that secretions from the frog repelled mosquitoes on lab mice for up to an hour, although not as much as the chemical-based repellent DEET.

The Australian scientists were looking for another way to repel mosquitoes instead of using DEET.

"The demonstration of ... insect repellents in amphibians is novel, and demonstrates that many aspects of frog chemical ecology remain unexplored," the team wrote in the online issue of the journal Biology Letters.

However, the findings may not lead to frog-based repellents for humans. Although the secretions vary in scent, they generally smell pretty foul, like rotting flesh, Williams said.