Dendrobates histrionicus Poison Dart Tree Frog

Dendrobates azures

Dendrobates Pumilio Strawberry Tree Frog

Epipedobates tricolor Phantasmal Poison Dart Frog

• Frogs may be found anywhere in the world (excluding Antarctica),although most frogs are found in the tropics.
• If you're looking for a frog, probably the best time to look is at night with a strong torch - when you shine it on the eyes of a frog you'll see a little red flash (like a fox's eyes).
• Frogs in the wild may be found by a method of triangulation (this is useful since the origin of frog croaks is somewhat deceptive). For example, if you're seeking a frog at night, take one or two friends and torches. Be quiet and approach the croaking frog from different directions, using your torches to show the others where you think the frog is. Where the torch light intersects you should find the frog.
• When water is scarce (say, in a dry summer), frogs will tend to congregate around the wet areas - look under rocks, in leaf matter etc. (be careful to replace the rock as you found it - lodged in the earth - because this is a favorite environment for frogs).
• In especially arid regions, some frogs burrow underground. For example, Arenophryne rotunda of the coastal sand hills of Western Australia burrows underground using its front feet (entering head first - other frogs tend to burrow backwards). This frog is especially suited to such burrowing, having a pad of dead tissue on its snout (like a callus), which protects the living tissue underneath. Another Australian burrower is the Crucifix Frog or Holy Cross Toad. The frog which grows up to 5cm gets its name from the cross-shaped pattern on its back. It spends most its time underground and feeds mainly on small black ants.
• Frogs living in very cold environments may hibernate over winter. Some frogs use strong concentrations of glucose (sugar) as antifreeze (the sugar also gives the organs energy to get going again upon thawing).
• The last question is how deep can a burrower frog go? The answer is of course knee-deep knee-deep!

• A frog tends to be moist, slimy and jumps.
• A toad tends to be dry, warty and walks.
• Many frogs are on a continuum between frogs and toads.
• A group of frogs is called an army, whilst a group of toads is called a knot. (However, always be careful of groups of frogs sporting knives and spiky hair cuts - they're called a punk gang)
• Of course, you should now be able to answer the age-old question of what happens if a frog and a toad collide? They get tongue tied

• The smallest frog is probably the Psyllophryne Didactyla from Brazil which is about 9.8mm as an adult:

  

• Most frogs range from 20-80mm.
• The largest frog is probably the Goliath from West Africa which is 300mm in length.
• So, now you can probably guess the game preferred by the big frogs.... Croaket.

• The bulging eyes of frogs can see in almost any direction.
• Some frogs have a 3rd eyelid (called a nictating membrane - like dogs) which may be drawn across the eye to protect it, but allowing some partial sight:

  

• Frogs generally move near to a light source, but can't distinguish between light and a white solid (try this).
• This brings us to the question of why frogs just love reading Sherlock Holmes? Because they really enjoy a good croak and dagger.

• Although frogs are excellent swimmers, most eventually drown if they don't have access to land.
• Frogs generally prefer moist regions (not water). Living, for example, in moist leaf matter. Some species are aquatic, though.
• Although most frogs are not aquatic, the Gastric Brooding Frog or Platypus Frog is an exception:

  

• Frogs loose water very rapidly in a totally dry atmosphere (normally dying within 3 hours).
• Don't forget to regularly water around where you keep tadpoles so that the ground is moist to heighten the survival rate of young frogs.
• Frogs which spend time underground secrete a substance from their skin which forms a cocoon around them.
• So, now you should understand why a frog without water will need to go to hospital! The frog will need a "hopperation"!

• Some frogs have adhesive pads on their toes for clinging.
• The greatest distance covered by a frog in a triple-jump is 33 feet 5.5 inches. This was done by a South African Sharp-Nosed Frog (Ptychadena oxyrhynchus) in Natal, South Africa on 21 May 1977.
• Some frogs from Central America and South-East Asia have heavily webbed feet that they can spread widely so that they can glide/parachute away from predators.

  

• It is also important to remember that if a frog breaks its leg it will feel very "unhappy".

• A frog's tongue is attached at the front of the mouth instead of at the rear, and is covered with a sticky substance which it uses to catch insects.
• Frogs use vocal cords to croak.
• Most frogs breathe through both their skin, mouth and lungs (tadpoles use their skin and gills).
• Frogs are cold-blooded, although they don't normally bask in the sun (the sun dries them out too quickly).
• Certain species of frogs may call at a certain "private" frequency which is not used by other nearby frogs - the call is transmitted within a separate sound range.
• Sometimes frogs simply "time-share" their croaks - maybe croaking at different times of the day or between their neighbors' croaks.
• Frogs may also be "tuned" to hear certain frequencies very clearly so that they may hear potential mates over the calls of other frogs.
• The Puerto Rican white lipped frog (Leptodactylus albilabris) actually calls as well as transmitting vibrations through the ground: it does this by partially burying itself in the ground and when its vocal sac expands in a croak, vibrations are transmitted through the ground.
• Similarly, the female Malaysian tree frog (Polypedates leucomystax), which may often be found on floating vegetation, taps its toes on reeds or grass to attract mates (this is usual in a number of respects it is the female doing the calling and a ground dwelling animal is using something other than the earth to transmit signals).
• The size of a frog will affect the frequency (sound) of its croaks: large frogs have deep voices whilst small frogs have higher voices.

• Frogs are normally carnivorous. However, there are some frogs that are herbivorous! A good example is Izecksohn's Brazilian Treefrog (Hyla truncata). This small Brazilian tree frog eats brightly colored fruits and then later excretes the seeds (it is thought that this frog is instrumental in aiding seed dispersal for the fruit plants it eats).
• Frogs swallow their food whole - so that they are only limited by the size of their mouth (that is, frogs do not chew their food, but swallow it whole).
• Frogs normally eat insects, worms, spiders, and centipedes, although large frogs may eat mice or small snakes. The important thing for keeping frogs is that they don't normally eat dead insects. You need to provide them with insects which are at least still struggling. In order to catch insects, a suggestion is to rig up a low wattage bulb over a funnel to attract insects and then drop them into a frog aquarium.

• For captive frogs, mealy worms are a favorite (you can normally get these from pet shops and feed them on flour, oat bran and/or unprocessed bran) - but make sure they're not too big for your frog!). You might also add some carrots to moisten the feed a little (potatoes, apples etc. will tend to make the feed too moist and encourage mites). However, you should note that there are a few problems with using mealworms as a food item:

  • they have no calcium
  • they are mostly fat
  • they may cause constipation in smaller frogs

  It is best to only use mealworms for frogs larger than 5cm and to coat them with vitamins (get this in powder form from your pet store) before feeding them to frogs.

• Frogs don't drink, but absorb water from their surroundings through their skin (by osmosis).
• A frog's tongue is covered with mucus so that prey sticks.
• A frog often retracts its eyes when it swallows food (normally one at a time) to force food down its throat.
• For small species of frogs, fruit flies may be used as feed. Also, a dish of mosquito larvae may provide small frogs feed as the mosquitoes emerge.
• Don't feed your frogs insects which have been sprayed with insecticide (it can kill them). This is especially important to keep in mind with large cockroaches. They move considerable distances, picking up insecticides at every other house and store chemicals in their bodies without ill effect (even if you don't use baits other people nearby may!).
• Don't mix small frogs with large frogs since the large may eat the small.
• Don't mix small mammals, birds, snakes or any other frog with an adult horned frog (Ceratophrys ornata):

  

  The horned frog is even thought to be cannibalistic! It comes from South America and is almost the girth of a large dinner plate and is a mean frog. It lies in wait for prey, half buried, and then jumps out to gobble down whatever has the misfortune to come by.

• When frogs eat something that is poisonous or otherwise bad for them, they can throw up their entire stomach. That is, the stomach actually protrudes through their mouth and they wipe it with their right front leg.
• Why the right front leg? The stomach of frogs is slightly towards their left side. When the stomach is ejected, it pulls to the right (since the membranes holding the stomach in place are shorter on that side). Since the right front leg can reach the stomach (and the left can't), frogs use their right leg to wipe the stomach and get rid of whatever nasty material is disturbing them.
• Of course, this all explains why frogs normally are so happy! They eat whatever bugs them.

• Frogs range across very many colors (even bright blue):

  

  The blue frog above is a poison arrow frog. These frogs are found in Central and South America and, as their name suggests, may be used to produce poison arrows. The frogs secrete toxins from their skin which can kill predators. They are brightly colored to warn predators to stay away.

• However, most frogs are dull in colour (to blend in with their environment) because frogs generally mate at night (so no-one sees color) and croaking is the important discriminator (the louder the better).
• Some species of frogs are "polymorphic" - ie. there may be different colorings in the same population (eg. speckled, striped and plain) - this makes it difficult for predators to get their eye in (they don't know what to look for).
• Frogs often have skin coloration that helps them blend into their environment and hide from predators:

  

  but that may not help a

• Male and female frogs tend to be the same color. However, there are often differences in markings/skin that may indicate whether a frog is male or female. Other factors used to determine a frog's sex include the fact that males call (females don't) and the size of a frog. The difficulty in determining a frog's sex is due to frogs generally not having external genitalia.
• What's green green green green green? A frog rolling down a hill

• Some frogs pretend that they're dead when attacked - which helps when the predator only eats live prey or hunts by movement. Some frogs have flash markings, so that just before they jump they show really bright markings (on their legs etc.) and a predator focuses on the markings but when they land the markings disappear so that the predator can't see the markings and thinks that the animal is gone:

  

• Some frogs attack by opening their mouths widely, grunting, screaming, lunging and biting.
• As noted above, poison arrow frogs of Central and South America are brightly colored to warn predators to stay away (they are highly poisonous).
• Tadpoles may regenerate limbs etc., although frogs normally don't (some regrowth may occur).
• Provided that they defend themselves, frogs generally live from four to forty years (depending on type) with the average being four to fifteen years.
• Of course, if a frog has a driving license it will prefer to drive off at the earliest sign of danger. Which brings us to the what happened to a frog's car when his parking meter expired? It got toad!!

Each species of frog produces a different tadpole which behaves differently as well. For example, tree frog tadpoles tend to congregate near the surface of water hanging at a 45 degree angle, whilst ground-dwelling frogs tend to live on the bottom of ponds.

In ponds and quiet waters, tadpoles tend to have plump bodies and high fins. Whilst in rivers etc., tadpoles tend to be more streamlined with long tails and low fins (many having sucker mouths for stability whilst feeding).

A tadpole normally feeds on algae and other vegetation. If you want to keep tadpoles, they particularly like boiled lettuce. Also, make sure that you have an end of the tank that has land (especially moist leaf matter) where the tadpoles may go when they become frogs. There are however tadpoles that have only a slit for a mouth with no feeding parts - these tadpoles live on yolk held inside their bodies.

A tadpole actually eats its tail! The tail is absorbed as the frog grows. This can take periods from hours through to days.

There is an intermediate phase on the cusp of a tadpole becoming a frog where the tadpole may remain in water as a tadpole or be a frog on land.

there are actually 46 distinct stages in a tadpole's metamorphosis into a frog with some tadpoles taking a few weeks whilst others take 2 years.

Tadpoles can live out of water as long as they remain moist. This particularly helps (at least for a little while) when ponds start to dry up.

Tadpoles develop more quickly in warm water - but don't boil them! - this is why they tend to congregate at the edge of a pond in the warmer water. Note that water temperatures over those experienced on hot days may kill frogs.

Tadpoles have a coiled intestine (since it is hard to digest plant matter so that more time is required) - the intestine straightens out as the tadpole becomes a frog since frogs are carnivorous.

Some tadpoles actually shrink into becoming smaller frogs. There are other physical changes such as eyes bulging and moving up the head and mouthparts changing.

Be careful of having tadpoles with fish - fish often don't mind the occasional tadpole for a snack. If you want to mix fish with tadpoles (eg. to keep mosquitoes down) you may wish to use White Cloud or Mountain Minnow (Tanicthys albonubes) which won't tend to decrease your tadpole population.

When keeping tadpoles or eggs, it is better to use water from where you got the specimen. Otherwise, you may use tap water which has been allowed to stand for a few days (tap water has chemicals which may kill tadpoles/eggs). Also, ensure that your tadpoles/eggs don't cook in direct sunlight.

Some frogs lay eggs which do not develop into tadpoles. The young actually develop in the egg and emerge as a frog. Surprisingly, they still have a tail! Some of the larger frogs have quite tough shells, so the young frogs come equipped with a spike on their snout which helps pierce the egg (much like reptiles). (As a technical aside, some examples are the microhylids and New Guinea ranids (other than the rana species)). There are even tadpoles that metamorphose on the adult male frog's back.

Some tadpoles are transparent so that you can see their organs.

Which gets us to the question of what a stylish young tadpole wants to wear once it metamorphoses? A jumpsuit!

Frogs may be hypnotised by placing them on their back and gently stroking their stomach.

A frog may also be hypnotised by shining a light in both its eyes simultaneously, although if the light is taken off one eye, they tend to jump away. (You will notice this when taking flash photographs of frogs - after the first photograph, the frog will sit still for the next couple of pictures!)

Frogs don't give you warts.

The glands of some frog species contain 20-30 chemical compounds, which are currently being used to produce antibiotics and analgesics. Interestingly, one painkiller derived from frog skin is 200 times stronger than morphine. The use of such chemicals range from gastric ulcer treatment through to the potential treatment of chronic schizophrenia and golden staph.

This is thought to be due to such factors as acid rain, ultra-violet radiation (due to a thinned ozone layer), pesticides, changes in habitat etc. Such changes particularly affect frogs due to their close relationship with their environment.

The mystery is that many of the endangered/extinct species are found at high altitude in protected and pristine rainforests. They vanished in a matter of only a few months (perhaps pointing to a disease). Add to this, the fact that other frogs from the same forests have not declined and the mystery deepens. However, The frogs which have gone missing had some things in common:

• they lived in or near flowing streams during all phases of their life cycles
• they did not produce very many eggs per spawning (less than 200 per clutch)

This indicates that what caused their demise may have something to do with the stream environment. This type of pattern has also been repeating itself in other tropical mountainous areas of the globe such as Panama. NASA in the USA is helping to compile atmospheric data which already shows that there are definite patterns and latitudes around the globe for these declines (which are called 'mystery declines' because they are different than other causes of frog declines).

In 1998, zoologists found that a fungus may also be involved in froggy declines. The fungus (a new genus of chytrid) was independently found by researchers in both Australia and the US. It is thought to either suffocate frogs by coating their undersides and legs or by releasing a toxin. It is not yet known whether the fungus alone kills the frogs or whether frogs in an already weakened state (due to other environmental factors) are pushed over the edge by the fungus.

• having a pond in your yard;
• cleaning rubbish from your local ponds and streams;
• lobbying your local councils and governments to set aside parkland and bush land for wildlife;
• not pouring oils and detergents down drains;
• not using artificial insecticides and herbicides
• locking up dogs and cats at night
• lobbying for research into froggy declines