The Amazing Life Of Toads And Frogs

2023 Author: Molly Page | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-27 22:49

Frogs and toads, however, like all amphibians, are very popular in the folklore of different peoples. They are afraid to kill them, because they believe that they are somehow mystically connected with the other world. During the Middle Ages, the toad and the frog were the most important attributes of witches and sorcerers: they were used in healing, love and harmful magic, but at the same time, all peoples believed that good luck enters the house with the frog. “To remove a wart, stick a frog on a stick and rub the wart with it. The wart will come down when the frog dies,”believe in Wales (in Russia, washing with caviar negates freckles). "To cure cancer, swallow frogs," advise in Midland (UK).

Orange toad (Incilius periglenes)

The unique abilities of amphibians have always attracted the attention of people. There are three families: toads, tree frogs and frogs. Toads do not have teeth, but the parotid glands are well developed behind the eyes and their skin is bumpy. The size is smaller than that of frogs. But nevertheless, the size of a specimen of the reed or sea toad, an inhabitant of tropical regions of South America and Australia, owned by the Swede Hakan Forsber, was 53.9 cm in length with extended legs in 1991, and weight - 2.65 kg. The smallest toad is the African subspecies, which is only 2.4 cm long.

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Tree tree frogs are the smallest of these three families. Their skin is smooth and there are widened discs on the fingers that facilitate upward movement. And frogs known to us all have teeth on the upper jaw, smooth or slightly pronounced tuberosity of the skin with pronounced swimming membranes on their hind legs. True, the family of frogs has a wide range in size: the smallest amphibian on the globe is a frog inhabiting Cuba, the length of which is 8.5-12 mm, and the largest is the goliath frog - the specimen caught in Cameroon had a total length with extended legs 87, 63 cm and weighed 3.66 kg. These three families are so diverse that you sometimes wonder when you get to know their life in different parts of the world.

Most frogs and toads lay eggs in or near water and leave them unattended. However, some species take care of their offspring. So the male of the Surinamese pipa lays eggs in the skin cells on the back of the female. Fully formed toads hatch from the eggs. The male of Darwin's rinoderma keeps eggs in a special throat pouch. When the frogs hatch and grow, they get out. Poison dart frogs carry their tadpoles from the place where they hatched from eggs. Each tadpole is placed high on a tree inside a plant filled with water - a kind and completely safe swimming pool for the younger generation. Once a week, the female feeds her offspring with eggs, from which no one will hatch. Poisonous animals are thosewhich produce toxic substances not only with the aim of killing their victim, but also to preserve their life. The aforementioned poison dart frogs, as well as leaf climbers living in South and Central America, release the most deadly toxins in the world. The skin secret of the golden leaf climber from western Colombia is the most dangerous of them.

Coral-buried littoria (Litoria caerulea)

The ability to fly is the ability to escape from enemies in this way, developed in the process of evolution by some species of tree frogs. They have long, spread fingers with webbing between them. These tree frogs can change the direction of flight by moving their paws and glide at a distance of up to 12 meters. The African sharp-faced frog does not lag behind in its self-preservation capabilities. The abilities of the representatives of this frog family - jumping long distances - are used by a person in sports called "frog derby". The world champion in triple long jump at a competition held in the resort town of Lurula-Natal (South Africa) in 1977, was a frog named Sanji. Her record was 10.3 m.

Few people know about the exceptional survival ability of these amphibians. In 1835, John Bratton of Coventry saw a chunk of sandstone fall from a platform to the ground and split in the middle. A toad jumped out of the lump. An unusual exhibit at the Booth Museum in Brighton is the mummified body of a toad found in 1899 inside a silicon rock in the quarries of Lewis (Great Britain). In 1906 in Brosley, Shropshire, workers at a depth of two meters split a layer of clay, inside it was a small live toad.

There are many quite reliable reports, especially often coming from Great Britain, that living toads were found walled up inside the hollow blocks.

Vladimir Pilyugin