Animalia

Did You Know?

Poison arrow frogs have powerful toxins in their skin mucus that cause paralysis and even death to predators that eat them. Certain peoples in South America use the poison for hunting animals by wiping their darts across the skin of the frog.

Frogs

Frogs are a small, tailless animal with a squat body and long, powerful hind legs adapted for jumping. Frogs have large, bulging eyes and moist skin. They typically live on land but spend part of their time in the water. Most frogs develop from small, fishlike larvae called tadpoles or pollywogs that live in water. This life divided between water and land is typical of amphibians, a group of related animals that includes toads, newts, and salamanders as well as frogs.

Frogs have sharp eyes that help them capture insect prey and identify predators or other dangers in their environment. The eyes of many frog species bulge out from the sides of the head, enabling them to see in nearly all directions and providing them with good depth perception, which helps them when capturing prey. Frogs also have a well-developed sense of hearing, which plays a role in locating mates and sensing predators. Behind each eye is a large disk called the tympanic membrane, an external eardrum that picks up sound waves and transmits them to the inner ear and then to the brain.

Most frogs do not care for their young—the adults simply mate and abandon the eggs. A few frogs provide varying degrees of parental care, of which there are some spectacular examples. Either the male or the female may provide this care, depending on the species. Among some frogs one of the parents stays near the clutch of eggs and guards it from harm. The female marsupial frog takes her eggs with her, incubating them in a pouch on her back. In one Australian frog species, the female swallows the eggs and the young develop in her stomach and emerge from her mouth as tadpoles or froglets. In Darwin’s frog, the male cares for the young, carrying the eggs and tadpoles in his vocal sac until they have matured into adults.

Burrowing Frog

Chorus Frog

Darwin's Frog

Edible Frog

Green-Banded Glass Frog

Green Frog

Green Tree Frog

Red-Eyed Leaf Frog