For about 50 years researchers have skinned poison frogs and ground up the tissue to study its chemistry. The practice, however, was focused almost entirely on extracting the toxins, which can have pharmaceutical applications.

Now, alongside her father, electrical engineer William Clark, herpetologist Valerie Clark—an unabashed frog lover and occasional frog licker—has co-created and used an electro-stimulation device to help extract chemicals out of skin glands without killing the frogs.

"Skinning [was] a standard practice, but in the last couple of decades, improvements in technology have skyrocketed," said Clark, a former grantee of the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)

"Our sensitivity to detect and analyze compounds is much greater, so we