Frogs serving as Andean ‘Viagra’

Lake Titicaca frogs are shown in a handout picture distributed on September 5, 2024, by the Peruvian National Forestry and Wildlife Service
HANDOUT / SERFOR/AFP

Lake Titicaca frogs are shown in a handout picture distributed on September 5, 2024, by the Peruvian National Forestry and Wildlife Service
HANDOUT / SERFOR/AFP

Nosy Tarsee is hearing curious things about a certain Batangueño solon known for keeping a road project in the family,…

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) brought its Permitting on Wheels initiative to Lake Sebu,…

Nearly a year after the Chief Executive used his biggest annual platform to call out the anomalies in the public works…
The proposed Taal Lake Circumferential Road (TLCR) project poses a significant threat to the aquatic ecosystem of Taal…

Environmental officials have ordered the temporary closure of Lake Holon in South Cotabato province after a powerful…
Peruvian authorities said Thursday they had seized hundreds of endangered frogs from Lake Titicaca that were illegally captured to be used for their purported aphrodisiac properties.
The national forestry and wildlife service said it found 390 frogs in a cardboard box inside a truck in the Puno region on the shores of the huge lake, which lies at 3,810 meters (12,500 feet) above sea level in the Andes, on Peru’s border with Bolivia.
The shipment was bound for the Peruvian capital Lima, where the frogs are widely used in traditional medicine as well as in dishes flagged as boosting customer’s sex drive.
Some traditional healers make a brew with frog extract that they call the “Viagra of the Incas,” after the civilization that ruled over a vast South American empire in the 15th and 16th centuries.
The potion is also touted as having a wide array of medicinal properties.
The Lake Titicaca frog (Telmatobius culeus), one of the largest species of aquatic frogs in the world, is native to Peru and part of Bolivia.