Temperature profiles from the Tanabe Peninsula, Japan

Regular readers of this blog will know that in July 2024 I visited the Tanabe Peninsula in Japan with Kento Takata to see the amazing project by Hiroshi Doei to rid the peninsula of invading Xenopus laevis (see here). I just reveived an update from Kento and it seems that the population has been exterminated! This is an amazing feat for Hiroshi Doei (see picture below) who spent more than 16 years of daily visits to this site. 

Kento also sent data downloaded from two Hobo loggers that I left in Japan. You can see them here in his hands:

The temperature profiles show that the Tanabe Peninsula gets very hot in summer and gets to near freezing in winter. This is close to the extremes of temperatures that we saw near Bloefontein in South Africa (see here). 

These frogs lived in a relatively extreme habitat for Xenopus, which are used to mild winters in Jonkershoek where most of them were shipped from (see here).