Sure, it looks like an ordinary frog. But this one is the about 2-pounds, the size of a frying pan, tastes like chicken, sounds like a howling dog and has a roundtrip plane ticket to Sweden.

No kidding. Scientists are airlifting dozens of these chicken frogs off the Montserrat island to save them from a deadly fungus that’s about to wipe them out. For anyone who doesn’t know -- hell, I sure didn’t until I read about it on the wires tonight -- Montserrat is a tiny British Caribbean territory and is the last remaining stronghold of this critically endangered mountain frog.

Once eaten as a delicacy (and called the chicken frog because it’s supposed to taste like chicken), the frog was hunted much of its life on Montserrat. It became nearly extinct from the Soufriere Hills volcano, which has been continuously erupting since 1995. Now, a killer fungus could decimate the few thousand left.

So the frogs are being flown to zoos in Sweden and Britain as a temporary measure, as a safeguard from extinction. The ones behind are being given anti-fungal baths by trained biologists.

It has cost about $14 grand so far to fly the frogs to their safe place. I don’t know who’s paying for it or why it’s important. I do know no creature should become extinct; I remember that from 4th grade science.

What I really want to know is how they were flown. Commercial or freight? First class or stand by? Passenger or luggage? Were they quarantined due to the fungus? Did they have to go through security checks?

And what about the bat fungus? Why didn’t we fly the bats out of Jersey and save their sorry asses? Bats have a long to-do list, eating mosquitoes a big one. What exactly are chicken frogs good for?

Hmmm. I wonder if it comes down to PR. Frogs are associated with fairy tales and princes. Bats, horror stories and vampires. It’s no wonder the frogs got planes tickets to Sweden and the bats were allowed to fall dead out of the sky.