Groundbreaking New ‘SynFrog’ Replaces Dissection

PETA and SynDaver Launch Amazingly Lifelike New Educational Tool to Take Down the Dissection Industry and Save Frog Populations

For Immediate Release:
November 20, 2019

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

Today, nearly 100 students at J.W. Mitchell High School seized the opportunity to try a revolutionary new educational tool: the SynFrog, a hyper-realistic synthetic frog that can completely replace the use of frogs for dissection in K–12 and collegiate science classes. At least 3 million frogs are killed annually for such lessons. Photos from the launch event are available here, and video footage is available upon request.

PETA is excited to have found a partner in SynDaver—the world’s leading manufacturer of hyper-realistic, synthetic human and animal surgical trainers—to create a true-to-life, hands-on dissectible frog that’s almost indistinguishable from real ones. The company jumped at the chance to work with us to revolutionize science education with this modern teaching tool.

Unlike the preserved bodies of dead frogs, which are bathed in chemicals and have monochromatic organs that are difficult to differentiate, the SynFrog is free of formaldehyde and formalin and contains removable and anatomically correct organs that accurately mimic living tissue. And importantly, it teaches students that they don’t have to harm animals in classroom dissection—a practice that fosters callousness toward animals, turns off some students from careers in science, and contributes to frogs’ declining population in the wild.

“PETA has promoted virtual dissection for years, but some teachers still request ‘hands-on’ teaching tools—and that’s where the SynFrog comes in,” says PETA Vice President of International Laboratory Methods Shalin Gala. “It’s safer, more effective, and more humane than cutting up dead animals—a practice that’s now destined for the trash bin of archaic education methods.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to experiment on”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.