Ask Me Everything8

(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. Ali Rights Reserved.

Survivors of hot and cold

£ The water-holding frog survives the heat of the Australian desert in a burrow.

Its “cocoon" of skintraps enough water to last the frog until the next ralns - nine months later!

&The wood frog lives in the far north of North America. It survives winter lows of 21°F(-6°C ) by turning into a “frog-sicle!" Up to 65 percent of its body’s fluids tum to ice, and even its organs stop working.

Tadpole food

01: Frogsmaylook cute, but, like most amphibians, they’re cannibals. Adult frogs will often eat tadpoles.

02: Tadpoles will eat other tadpoles—though they try to avoid gobbling up their siblings.

03: Tadpoles may nibble off the legs of early developers, so it pays to be a late bloomer!

04: Some tree frogs lay an extra egg for the tadpoles to feed on!

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Some frogs, such as the Mexican tree frog, lie on their back and play dead when threatened.

Six freaky frogs

Giant Titicaca frog

Living in Lakę Titicaca, high in the Andes of South America, this is one of the few amphibians that never needs to surface for air. Instead, it takes in oxygen from the water through its wrinkled skin.

Ornate horned frog

With its mottled green and brown skin, this frog is perfectly camouflaged hiding under leaves. When a worm, mouse, or other frog passes by, it lunges at its victim and gobbles it up.

Mossy frog

Native to Vietnam, this tree frog has bumpy, speckled skin that looks just like moss or lichen. When alarmed, the frog rolls into a bali and plays dead until the danger has passed.

Glass frog

There are morę than 100 species of glass frogs. They live in trees in Central and South American rain forests. They have hardly any pigment in their transparent skin, so their organs show through.

Eggs, tadpoles, and froglets

Fiji tree frogs hatch as —^^fully formed froglets!

Now extinct, the

gastric brooding frog

“ate” its eggs so the tadpoles could develop in its stornach.

Some poison-arrow —frog moms give their tadpoles a piggyback to the nearest pool after they hatch.

The Suriname toad s

eggs develop on the female’s back. The offspring hop off when they’re froglets!

The małe pouched —frog of Australia has pouches on either side of its body where its young develop.

Paradox frog tadpoles

are 8.7 in (22 cm) long. They “grow” into frogs that are only 2.6 in (6.5 cm).

False-eyed frog

This frog has two large spots on its bottom that look like the eyes of a much larger animal and scare off most predators. It that doesn’t do the trick, the frog produces sticky, foul-smelling “tears.” Yuck!

Dyeing dart frog

Like all poison-arrow frogs, this frog is brightly colored—a warning that its skin contains deadly toxins. Tribal peoples collect this poison to use on their arrows, which is how poison-arrow frogs get their name.