ArticleBiology open2015
Is "cooling then freezing" a humane way to kill amphibians and reptiles?
Article in Biology open, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
- Experimental evidence for behavioural cooling as a response to virus infection in an ectothermic vertebrate.BMC biology · 2026Article
- Ingestion of the potent neurotoxin epibatidine does not compromise locomotion or behavior in the poison frogbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Temperature constrains diet-induced plasticity in the life-history of an aquatic vertebrate.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- An electrophysiological correlate of sleep in a shark.Journal of experimental zoology. Part A, Ecological and integrative physiology · 2024Article
- Juvenile agile frogs spatially avoid ranavirus-infected conspecifics.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Does the pancreas of gekkotans differentiate similarly? Developmental structural and 3D studies of the mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris) and the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius).Journal of anatomy · 2024Article
- Aminomethylphosphonic Acid (AMPA), a Glyphosate Metabolite, Decreases Plasma Cholinesterase Activity in Rats.Journal of xenobiotics · 2024Article
- Faunal Diet of Adult Cane Toads,Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Metabolites of Xenorhabdus bacteria are potent candidates for mitigating amphibian chytridiomycosis.AMB Express · 2023Article
- Sex-based differences in the use of post-fire habitats by invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina).Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Description of a newZooKeys · 2022Article
- Prevalence and antibiotic resistance ofVeterinary world · 2021Article
- Wildfires modify the parasite loads of invasive cane toads.Biology letters · 2021Article
- An Efficient Method for the Euthanasia of Cane Toads (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Exposure to Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis affects chemical defences in two anuran amphibians, Rana dalmatina and Bufo bufo.BMC ecology and evolution · 2021Article
- Chemical cues that attract cannibalistic cane toad (Rhinella marina) larvae to vulnerable embryos.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Reference Intervals in Combined Veterinary Clinical Examinations of Male Black-Spotted Pond Frogs (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Embryology of the naso-palatal complex in Gekkota based on detailed 3D analysis in Lepidodactylus lugubris and Eublepharis macularius.Journal of anatomy · 2021Article
- Squamate egg tooth development revisited using three-dimensional reconstructions of brown anole (Anolis sagrei, Squamata, Dactyloidae) dentition.Journal of anatomy · 2020Article
- Evaluation of Effective and Practical Euthanasia Methods for Larval African Clawed Frogs (Journal of the American Association for Laboratory Animal Science : JAALAS · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
What is the most humane way to kill amphibians and small reptiles that are used in research? Historically, such animals were often killed by cooling followed by freezing, but this method was outlawed by ethics committees because of concerns that ice-crystals may form in peripheral tissues while the animal is still conscious, putatively causing intense pain. This argument relies on assumptions about the capacity of such animals to feel pain, the thermal thresholds for tissue freezing, the temperature-dependence of nerve-impulse transmission and brain activity, and the magnitude of thermal differentials within the bodies of rapidly-cooling animals. A review of published studies casts doubt on those assumptions, and our laboratory experiments on cane toads (Rhinella marina) show that brain activity declines smoothly during freezing, with no indication of pain perception. Thus, cooling followed by freezing can offer a humane method of killing cane toads, and may be widely applicable to other ectotherms (especially, small species that are rarely active at low body temperatures). More generally, many animal-ethics regulations have little empirical basis, and research on this topic is urgently required in order to reduce animal suffering.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.