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Call off yer dogs, son, I was just asking a question. Remember all the mutated frogs here in the states? Turned out they had some parasite and it wasn't pollution or global warming as some had postulated.

Even the researchers said that they found a mere 8000 years to be remarkable fast for the development of a new species.

Might the incompatibility be due to another organism, parasitic or otherwise, that the other frog population had not been exposed to affecting interpopulational fertility?

Moving them to a lab would not necessarily get rid of the parasites, virii, etc..

Did anyone check for that or were they in such a rush to have their ego step on someone's ID?

There is your other theory.

I asked, you flamed. Lovely science.

Moving them to a lab would not necessarily get rid of the parasites, virii, etc..

First of all, generally, yes, it would, especially over several controlled matings, the ability to observe and assay embryos, in vitro fertilizations, etc.

Might the incompatibility be due to another organism, parasitic or otherwise, that the other frog population had not been exposed to affecting interpopulational fertility?

No. It's not fertility that's affected. It's a developmental problem in the offspring. Southern females and northern males have lots of babies - the babies don't (can't) develop into adults because of genetic deficiencies.

Consider also that their research is based on comparative molecular studies between the mitochondrial DNA of the northern frogs and the southern frogs. You mentioned Occam's razor. Is it more likely that an external force is causing such differences between them (especially developmental problems) or that the observable differential molecular sequence is causing a differential phenotype? :)

"Call off yer dogs, son, I was just asking a question. Remember all the mutated frogs here in the states?"

I'll call off my frogs, dad, I just tried to heat your question to distill it.

The question in this article was not about why the southern females got problems. This really could due to "organism, prasitic or otherwise" cause. The evolutionary result was fascinating - a new specie. The entrapped southern colony is today unable to breed with the other frogs.

But that also may only have minor causes like "organism, prasitic or otherwise". Organism or parasitic is unlikely because neither male nor female frogs can breed and an organism is easy to detect under microscope. A viral infection is harder to detect. But why causes that only the entrapped specie to produce no offspring with the others? A special genetic resistance of the others?

So you see your hypothesis about 'other' causes has much more unknowns than the new specie hypothesis.

You know how Occam cuts?