Little frogs. The largest and smallest frog in the world. The biggest frog

Frogs and toads are probably the most common amphibians on our planet. They are so diverse that we did not even suspect the existence of some.

Very poisonous, even one touch causes an allergic reaction. Male Panamanian frogs emit a whistle and a loud, long sound that can be heard throughout the forest. It is interesting that frogs communicate with each other using a semaphore system - a system of gestures and touches. It is believed that this species of frog has developed this unusual form of communication due to the loud noise in water bodies. To attract attention, frogs wave or raise their paws.

One of the largest representatives of the amphibian world. In length, the frog reaches an average of 20 cm, and the average weight is half a kilogram. But there are real giants - in 1949 in the USA, the state of Washington was caught weighing 3 kg 250 gr. An interesting fact is that the bullfrog is one of the ten on Earth.

Extremely poisonous frog. The Indians of Peru and Ecuador catch poison dart frogs and dip their arrows in their poison. Fertilized eggs are laid in moist soil. When tadpoles are born, they are attached to the male on the back and he carries the babies to the trees, where water collects in the leaves and flowers. The male poison dart frog guards the pools with tadpoles, the female feeds them with unfertilized eggs.

Moor frog or marsh frog- the back is light brown, olive in color. From the eyes and almost to the shoulders there is a dark stripe, which narrows towards the end. The muzzle is pointed. It seems like an unremarkable frog, but... but during the mating season, it turns blue.

normal state

during mating season

hairy frog- from the name it is clear that the frog has an unusual appearance. During the breeding season, the body of males is covered with skin shreds, like hair. The hairy amphibian is distinguished not only by its bizarre appearance, but also by the ability to release "claws" like a cat. In times of danger, her bones on her fingers pierce the skin and get a kind of claws.

paradox frog. Lives in South America. The adult individual does not differ in anything peculiar - small in size - about 6 cm, green. But the tadpole of the paradoxical frog grows up to 25 cm in length.

Thyroid, also known as . It has an unusual body shape - it is perfectly round. At the moment of danger, she takes in air and becomes spherical, while straightening her legs, choking herself and making loud, frightening sounds. Tadpoles practice cannibalism - they eat each other.

Vietnamese mossy frog or lichen paddlepod- the owner of the most camouflage skin among frogs. She almost completely merges with the external environment, even her eyes seem to be disguised among the moss.

It has not only a bizarre appearance, but also an unusual way of raising offspring. The female lays eggs in a puddle, but when the embryos begin to move, the male swallows them. Eggs with tadpoles are located in the throat of the male in a special bag. When the offspring grows up and is ready for independent life, the frogs begin to jump in the male's throat, after which he spits them out.

Nose toad or nosed toad- Eater of ants and termites. Outwardly, it is very similar to a mole, and just like a mole, it spends almost its entire life underground and digs tunnels. The tunnels and burrows of the nosed toad lead to anthills and termite mounds, the frog's only food.

This is an ordinary inhabitant of the pond and it seems that there is nothing surprising in it. However, this is one of the most amazing representatives of the animal world. Let's find out more about the most unusual types of frogs in the world.

Transparent or glass frog

The length of this small strange frog, found in the Mexican state of Chiapas, is only 2 cm. Through the colorless skin of the abdomen, all the insides are clearly visible, which is why it is also called glass. This species of amphibians hunts at night, eating small insects. A transparent frog lays eggs on the leaves of shrubs hanging over the water, so that the hatched tadpoles can immediately fall into their native element.

coca poison frog

Another miniature representative of amphibians comes from the jungles of Colombia. Another name for this frog, which aptly describes both its appearance and lifestyle, is the spotted poison dart frog. This strange frog has gained notoriety, thanks to an unusually toxic poison, which is several thousand times stronger than the poison of one of the most dangerous snakes - the rattlesnake. So far, scientists have been unsuccessfully trying to find an antidote for it. Poison is produced in the frog's skin, in special glands, and is released when touched. The body of only one frog is capable of producing an amount of poison that can kill one and a half thousand people. Well, what can I say, be careful in the jungles of Colombia!

hairy frog

This unusual type of frog was discovered in Gabon, in Central Africa, at the beginning of the 20th century. The peculiar hair on the back of males is a continuation of the skin, blood circulation occurs in them, and nerve endings are also located. It is believed that these conditional hairs are a kind of respiratory organs of a male frog, and by increasing the surface of the body, they contribute to increased metabolism.

goliath frog

A fairly rare species of amphibians that lives in West Africa. The long body of the frog reaches 30 cm, and the weight is an incomprehensible 3.5 kg. The largest specimen caught in Angola was 40 cm long. This giant among tailless amphibians loves clean running water saturated with oxygen. The diet of the goliath is made up of small frogs, tadpoles, mice and lizards. Local residents, in turn, are happy to hunt this amazing frog, which threatens the species.

bull frog

Native to North America, this large frog species, although smaller than the African goliath frog, makes a loud statement in a different way. In the spring, bullfrogs emit a deafening croak, more reminiscent of the lowing of a herd of cows. The roar of a frog alone can be heard from a distance of 3 kilometers. However, unlike real bulls, the bullfrog is not a vegetarian at all: it feeds on mollusks, insects, as well as chicks and small fish.

Pointy-nosed tree frog

The unusual nose of this New Guinea frog species gives it a funny look. But this is not just a whim. This nocturnal hunter is forced to hide in crevices during the day, leaving only her thin, curved, hard nose on the surface. Pulling a frog out of a hiding place for him is beyond the power of not only small predators, but even a person.

flying frog

This little frog has set the record for the long jump, which is more like flying. Living in the humid tropics of Southeast Asia, she is able to jump as much as 12 meters. This is a huge distance, considering that the size of the frog itself is 10-12 centimeters. The reason for this jumping ability lies in the wide, dark orange membranes between the fingers on the legs of the frog, a flat body and the ability to plan.

A lot of unusual discoveries were made by researchers of frogs, and simply caring naturalists. But these amazing animals still keep many secrets. In anticipation of new discoveries, with respect and love, we will look at our neighbor on the planet - such an ordinary and at the same time unusual frog.

Frogs belong to the largest order of amphibians - tailless. There are thousands of varieties, this issue contains 10 of the strangest and most unusual.

The rainbow frog is an object of worship in India. Hundreds of people flock every day to Reggie Kumar's home in India to pray and ask for miracles. The frog shimmered white when Reggie from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala in southern India, saw it for the first time. Then she glowed yellow, and then turned gray. A frog that constantly changes color is considered a god in India.

Hyalinobatrachium pellucidum - also called glass frog or transparent frog because of its transparent skin through which you can see its insides. Unfortunately, this is an endangered amphibian species.

The harlequin frog is known by many names, such as the clown frog or the Costa Rican harlequin toad. Whatever you call it, this is a neo-tropical frog that used to be quite common in Costa Rica and Panama. Now this species is listed in the Red Book, frogs of this species live today mainly in Panama.

The northern leopard frog is considered an unusual species, reaching a length of up to 9 cm. The colors on its back range from brown to dark green, and round spots are distinguished by a white line.

It is believed that the greater the geographical height, the larger the animal that lives there. However, the smallest frog in the world lives just at a height - in the Andes of southern Peru at an altitude of 3 - 3.19 meters.

Coloring poison dart frog, such as this blue subspecies, is the common name for a group of frogs in the poison dart frog family that lives in Central and South America. Unlike most frogs, this species is active during the day and almost always has brightly colored bodies. While all poison dart frogs are venomous to some degree, venom levels vary by subspecies and population. Many subspecies are in danger of extinction. The American Indians used their poison for their arrows and darts. (Gail Shumway/Getty Images 2007)

The goliath frog is the largest extant species of toad on Earth. Its dimensions reach 33 cm in length from the muzzle to the cloaca, and it weighs up to 3 kg. This species lives mainly in western Africa, near Gabon. The goliath frog can live up to 15 years. They feed on scorpions, insects and small frogs. These frogs have excellent hearing but lack a vocal resonator.

Theloderma corticale, or the Vietnamese marsh frog, is a species of frog in the copepod family. It can be found in Vietnam and possibly China. Typically found in tropical and subtropical rainforests, intermittent freshwater swamps, and rocky areas. The frog is also often referred to as a moss frog due to the fact that its skin resembles moss growing on a rock, which, by the way, provides it with excellent camouflage. Some people have such a frog at home. The price of this miracle is about 45-75 dollars.

As the name suggests, the Mantella frog is red/orange. These are small frogs, reaching a length of up to 2.5 cm. It lives in Madagascar.

This horned frog can grow up to 15 cm in length and is native to Uruguay, Brazil as well as northern Argentina. Although this hulk looks like a tortilla (or pincushion, if you like), it reacts very quickly when a lizard, small rodent, frog or bird flies by.

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24.04.2012 - 16:53

What miracles do not exist in nature! Frogs are one of the most amazing creatures that live on our planet. Don't believe? Then look for yourself at giant frogs, baby frogs, golden frogs and other most unusual and wonderful representatives of the "quack" fauna...

Tree frogs, toads and frogs

To begin with, in order not to get confused, let's quickly figure out how frogs differ from toads, and those, in turn, from tree frogs. So frogs. They prefer to live in water bodies (or in close proximity to water), have teeth on the upper jaw and swimming membranes on their hind legs. Frogs also have fairly smooth skin.

Toads have no teeth, the skin is rather uneven and drier and darker than that of frogs. Toads live on land, and do not climb into the water very willingly and only during the breeding season.

Tree frogs are the smallest family of amphibians. Tree frogs have disks on their fingers that allow them to climb trees, something neither frogs nor toads can really do. Having climbed higher, the tree frog, if such a need suddenly arises, can easily glide onto a neighboring tree or back to the ground.

Encounter with the goliath

Different types of frogs (we will call them all frogs for convenience) amaze us with a wealth of shapes, colors and sizes. Are you not struck? This is because you have never met, for example, a goliath frog. Imagine that you are walking through the swamps of Equatorial Guinea, approaching a small waterfall, and suddenly something jumps right into the water from the bushes with a terrible roar and a cloud of spray!

Something - about a meter in length (counting the legs) and weighing about three kilograms. Zoologists will tell you about the weight and length later, and the first impression (and for the faint of heart and the last) will be as if you scared away a slimy, disgusting dinosaur.

In fact, the goliath frog is only dangerous for people with a weak heart. She does not know how to bite, she is afraid of people (because the natives perceive her as a delicacy), and not only people. It hunts mainly for insects, and spends most of its time sitting on beaches and coastal rocks, ready to jump into the depths at any hint of danger. Hiding under water, the goliath emerges in 10-15 minutes, but not entirely, but first exposes only the tip of the nose and eyes to the surface. After making sure that the beach is free, the goliath crawls entirely ashore and again takes a position on his favorite pebble.

Panamanian gold

Did not impress? Are you a man with iron nerves, and some kind of (even if very large) toads will not scare you? Good. Then let's move to Panama and get acquainted with one of the symbols of this country - the Panamanian golden frog.

The Panama frog is small and very beautiful - its skin has a bright and juicy yellow color. There is a belief that this amphibian after its (necessarily natural) death turns into gold. That is why in Central America before the arrival of the conquistadors there was so much gold and products from it. They say that the first colonists, having heard a lot of Indian stories about frogs, drove poor amphibians into special pens, and left them to die in anticipation that they would turn into precious ingots.

If you meet a golden frog, you can observe its life (rather sparsely), make a wish or honor the memory of the Indians, and at the same time the first settlers. You can listen to male golden frogs, which are able to make sounds that can be carried for several kilometers. Surely you will be attracted by the "sign language" of these amphibians. The fact is that golden frogs live near noisy waterfalls, and therefore communicate with each other mainly not with sounds, but with gestures - they raise their right or left paws, wave them in a rather funny way, turn their heads and so on.

All this you can do. Except for one thing - do not try to take a golden frog in your hands. The Panamanian golden frog is one of nature's most venomous creatures, and its venom is found right on the skin. Moreover, the younger the individual, the more deadly the poison that helps teenage frogs survive in this world.

Amphibian princess

If you really want to cuddle a poor amphibian, or even take it home to keep in an aquarium, leave the golden frog alone and get a real “princess” - a red-eyed tree frog that also lives in South America.

Photos of this funny creature can be found everywhere, which is not surprising. The red-eyed frog is slender, with smooth skin and sucker paws, very cute, defenseless, safe, and makes an unforgettable impression even on the most inveterate frog-phobes. Its main color is green, on the sides and at the base of the paws it is blue with a yellow pattern, the fingers are orange. The belly is white or cream. The eyes, as we understand it, are red. Some individuals have small white spots on the back.

It's funny that young Panamanian tree frogs can change their color: in the daytime they are green, and at night they turn crimson or red-brown.

Minimalism

We talked about the largest, most poisonous and most beautiful frogs. Next in line is the smallest tree frog to date.

This baby, whose name - Paedophryne amauensis - is much longer than herself, was discovered by a group of scientists from Louisiana State University in the forests of Papua New Guinea as recently as last December.

The body length of a microfrog is only 8-9 mm. And the coloring is such that it is almost impossible to notice it on the ground. It's amazing that they found it at all...

unkempt frog

Gerald Durrell wrote: “I was looking for a hairy frog in the lowland forests of Cameroon, but all the hunters there unanimously insisted that there was no such thing in the world. I stood my ground, and they looked at me with pity - here, they say, is another proof of the incomprehensible stupidity of the white man, because even small children know that frogs do not have hair! And it was in vain that African hunters laughed at the famous zoologist. Hairy frogs do exist, and Darrell eventually managed to get them for his zoo!

So what kind of miracle is a hairy frog? This is a rather large amphibian with a wide and flat head, eyes bulging in endless surprise and a huge, greedy mouth. The color of the body on top is dark chocolate, the belly is white. Well, the main difference between a hairy frog and ordinary marsh tree frogs is, in fact, the hair sticking out of the sides and on the hips.

That is, of course, this is not the kind of hair that grows on our heads, but something like thick, tangled algae. Only males have this decoration. Hairy females have not been observed in nature.

At first, scientists were extremely surprised. They even decided that hairy females simply have to be, they are just hard to find. But later, when it became clear why, in fact, the hairy frog had her hair, the question of gender inequality disappeared by itself.

It turned out that frogs ... breathe with these “hairs” when they sit under water for a long time. This is just a kind of gills, as an addition to the lungs. And hair appears only in males and only for the period when they are forced to sit in their pond almost without getting out and guard the laying with eggs. But females do not need gills at all, they breathe only with their lungs.

And all because, firstly, they do not protect the underwater masonry, and secondly, they rarely get into ponds and puddles at all, preferring land. It is interesting that mother nature, unlimited in her imagination, awarded this amazing frog not only with thick and lush hair, but also with ... huge claws, which, like cat's "fish hooks", are hidden in special bags on the fingers.

If the predator manages to grab the frog, then it releases its claws and starts waving its paws until the discouraged and scratched enemy spit out this seemingly harmless, but, it turns out, such a bloodthirsty creature.

Pipa americana

Everyone who read M. Bulgakov's novel "Fatal Eggs" knows about this frog (more precisely, a toad). After all, it was her death that Professor Persikov mourned most of all. Pipa is a unique toad. First of all, it looks like an asphalt paver drove over it. This helps the Americana pretend to be "inanimate" and avoid contact with predators.

These amazing amphibians are found only on the South American continent: in Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana and Suriname. Pipas prefer to spend most of their lives in water. The mating call of male pipa resembles the ticking of a small clock. Obeying the inviting tick, the female comes across her half and the process of spawning begins, unlike any of the existing ones in the world.

Noble's frog

The smallest frog was found, oddly enough, high in the mountains. Namely, in the southern part of Peru, in the Andes mountains. The new animal species was named Noblela (Noblela pygmaea). It turned out to be very difficult to see the smallest amphibian, since its size is very miniature, an adult reaches only 10-13 millimeters in length. The females of these amphibians reach slightly larger sizes than the males: the former grow up to 12.5 millimeters, and the latter only 11.

In the thickets of Peru

This small frog, the size of a tiny coin, also has a camouflage brown color, so it is almost impossible to notice it in the thickets of Peru.

Nobles live in dense tropical evergreen forests and meadows located high in the mountains, at an altitude of about 3000-3200 meters above sea level.

Caring for offspring

The smallest frog in the world has several differences from other amphibians. One of them is that the frog lays only 2 eggs (eggs). Each of which is 1/3 the size of the frog itself. Lays eggs in something wet, it can be fallen leaves, moss, grass.

An amphibian wraps around 2 eggs and cares for them until they mature and hatch. Newborn animals do not have such a stage of development as a tadpole, they are immediately in the adult stage.

uncharted territories

Nobles live in the same territory all their lives, not leaving it even during the breeding season. This is very unusual for other frogs. Their small size allows them to take their place in the distribution of animals throughout the territory without interfering with larger inhabitants.

Scientists believe that with further search and study of uncharted territories in the region of South America, even smaller creatures can be found.