Frogs

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Frogs
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Prehistoric Frogs

• Did you know amphibians have been around for...
  an estimated 350 million years. The earliest
  known frog appeared about 190 million years ago,
  during what is known as the late Jurassic period.

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Amphibians

• Frogs are amphibians, animals that spend part of
  their lives under water and the remainder on land

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• They have long powerful back legs that they use
  for jumping.
• They have short backbones.

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All the Better to See You With!

• EyesFrogs have keen eyesight to locate prey.
  They see colors and in dim light. Their bulging
  eyes see in all direction

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• Frogs have a reputation for leaping that is well
  deserved. Launched by their long legs, many frogs
  can leap up to twenty times their body length.
  (That would be about a 100-foot jump for you or
  me!) The longest frog jump on record was made by
  a frog named Santjie at a frog derby held in
  South Africa. Santjie bested the competition with
  a jump of 33 feet 5.5 inches

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• Most frogs have teeth (in the upper jaws only)
  but toads do not have any teeth.

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Life Cycle

• Like all amphibians, frogs spend their lives near
  water because they must return to the water to
  lay their eggs

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Frog Eggs

• Frog eggs are laid in the water.

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Tadpoles

• After about 10 days a tadpole wriggles out
  ofeach egg. At first the tadpole breathes
  andmoves like a fish, using its gills and long
  tail.

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• After 5 weeks, they lose their tail, and they
  grow lungs that they use to breathe. It has teeth
  that lets it eat plants and it can also eat
  insects.

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• It takes three years for the frog to go through
  its life cycle .

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• In harsh climates, frogs bury themselves in sand
  and mud and hibernate (sleep very deeply) through
  the cold winter.

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• When temperatures drop, some frogs dig burrows
  underground or in the mud at the bottom of ponds.
  They hibernate in these burrows until spring,
  perfectly still and scarcely breathing. Wood
  frogs can live north of the Arctic Circle,
  surviving for weeks in a frozen limbo state. This
  frog uses glucose in its blood as a kind of
  antifreeze that concentrates in its vital organs,
  protecting them from damage while the rest of the
  body freezes solid.

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• Frogs can be found on every continent except
  Antarctica.
• Though they thrive in warm, moist tropical
  climates, frogs also live in deserts and high on
  15,000 foot mountain slopes. The Australian
  water-holding frog is a desert dweller that can
  wait up to seven years for rain. It burrows
  underground and surrounds itself in a transparent
  cocoon made of its own shed skin.

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• Like all amphibians, frogs are cold-blooded,
  meaning that their body temperatures change with
  the temperature of their surroundings.

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Protection

• Some frogs use camouflage to avoid predators. The
  patterns and colors of a frog's skin, and
  sometimes the shape of its body, can help it
  blend into its surroundings.

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Diet

• Frogs eat any animal they can capture and
  swallow, including worms, insects, crustaceans,
  other frogs, snakes, and even small mammals and
  birds.

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• They have webbed feet for swimming.
• They have suction disks on their feet to help
  them climb

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Predators

• The primary predators of frogs are fish, although
  a variety of birds, mammals, snakes, crustaceans,
  and insects prey on these frogs and their
  tadpoles.
• Humans hunt these frogs for their meat (frog
  legs).
• Bullfrogs also prey upon each other.

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Did You Know?????

• A frog's skin is not waterproof! In fact, frogs
  can absorb both oxygen and water through their
  skin. This quality makes frogs particularly
  vulnerable to pollutants in the air or water -
  they suffer from pollution even when they don't
  eat or drink it through their mouth.

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Did You Know that Frogs Fly?

• Well, it's not exactly flying, but certain tree
  frogs in South America and Asia do get airborne.
  When a flying frog leaps between tree branches,
  it glides down gently with its toes outspread.
  The webbing between the toes catches the air and
  the frog sails as if carried by a parachute. The
  "flight" can cover more than 50 feet!

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• Frogs come in a wide range of sizes and a rainbow
  of colors. The goliath frog of West Africa is the
  size of a small dog, measuring about 15 inches
  from nose to rump. On the other end of the scale
  is Pyllophryne didactyla, the world's smallest
  frog, which is found in Brazil. This little frog
  is about the size of a firefly and could sit
  easily on top of a pencil eraser.

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Do Frogs Cause Warts?

• You may have heard this before, but it's just not
  true. A toad's skin may be bumpy and
  warty-looking, but if you touch a toad, you will
  not get warts!

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• Leopard Frog
• This is a typical jumping frog, with powerful
  back legs. It's native to the NE and N-Central
  US.

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• Fire-Bellied Toad From Korea and north China,
  this frog has a spotted camouflaged back. When
  startled, it flips over or bends backward to show
  its bright belly as a warning - poisonous! This
  toad lacks the vocal sack that is present in most
  other frogs toads, so its call is very weak and
  can only be heard over very short distances.

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• Smoky Jungle Frog From the Amazon Basin in South
  America, this big frog is 5"-6" long. It spends
  most of its time in the jungle, away from ponds
  and streams. To keep her eggs moist, the female
  oozes a liquid from her body, beats it into a
  frothy foam with her back feet, and deposits her
  eggs in the foam. The outside of the foam hardens
  into a shell that protects the eggs and keeps
  them moist.

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• Argentine Leaf-Folding Frog These frogs
  reproduce by depositing a gelatinous clutch of
  eggs into a leaf funnel over water, by folding a
  leaf and gluing it together with a sticky bodily
  secretion. Tadpoles hatch and fall into the water
  below!

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• Dyeing Poison Arrow Frog This poison arrow frog
  is found in Guyana, along the northern Brazilian
  border. Toxins from the frog's skin must enter
  the bloodstream to be lethal. Natives believe
  that an irritated frog, when rubbed on a bald
  spot of a parrot, will cause the feathers to grow
  in red.

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• Blue Poison Arrow Frog One of the largest poison
  arrow frogs, up to 2" long, this frog is found
  only in a single partially wooded savannah region
  of Surinam. It was discovered in 1969. A spawning
  frog lays just 4-6 eggs under leaves by a pool.

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• The Tomato Frog is from Madagascar. This species
  is endangered, but there is a species of Tomato
  Frog that is not endangered and is sometimes
  available from reptile dealers.

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• The Red-Legged Frog is from northwestern North
  America. This one is about 2-1/2 inches long.

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• This African Bullfrog looked like he was having
  a bad frog day! He's huge and warty, a good 6"
  across the middle, and had settled himself into a
  nice mud puddle. A fully grown one can be the
  size of a football!

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• This is a picture of a 'banana box' frog, sent
  from Australia. Actually it is a Dainty Green
  Tree Frog from Queensland, Australia but these
  frogs grab a ride on produce such as bananas as
  they are shipped down south to places like
  Victoria. It is estimated that 6,000 to 8,000
  frogs end up in Melbourne (Victoria, Aust.) from
  Queensland each year.

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• 1. they spend part of their life cycle on land
  and some in water 2. have a permeable skin
  (which allows substances to move relatively
  freely into its body) and3. absorb and
  concentrate (make stronger) toxins (poisonous
  substances) in their fatty tissues