|
|
The Runaway Princess | Frogs and Princes
Cool Froggy Facts | All-Star Frogs | Frog Songs
Cool Froggy Facts
 | People who study frogs (herpetologists) consider frogs and toads pretty much the same thing. The rest of us tend to think of frogs as being longer and smoother and better leapers and water dwellers, while toads are squattier and bumpier and drier and dwell on land.
|
| A frog's skeleton doesn't have a rib cage, so if you hold a frog by the middle, be careful not to squeeze it or you could damage its internal organs.
|
| You probably know that tadpoles lose their gills and tails, growing lungs and legs to become frogs, but those aren't the only changes. The tadpole's intestines shorten as it stops being an algae-eating herbivore and becomes an insect-eating carnivore. The tadpole's eyes move to the top of its head, helping prey turn into predator. The tadpole must also grow bones, a tongue, eyelids, teeth, and new kidneys, among other body parts.
|
| Frogs' front feet are called "hands," like ours! Frogs land hand first when they leap.
|
| Going by body length, only a flea can jump farther than a frog. Frogs can jump as much as 20 times their body length. Kangaroos can jump up to 6 times their body length, while humans can jump about 4 times their body length.
|
| Different designs of frog and toad feet make them better at swimming, climbing, or digging.
|
| The pupils of frogs' eyes can be horizontal or vertical slits, round, heart-shaped, star-shaped, or triangle-shaped.
|
| A bullfrog can see you from behind, since its protruding eyes give it a protective 360-degree view.
|
| Frogs have an extra eyelid called a nictating membrane which slides shut underwater—it's transparent, so they can still see, but their eyes are protected as they swim.
|
| A frog lowers its eyeballs to help push food down its throat.
|
| Frogs breathe partly through their skin. They drink water only through their skin.
|
| Frogs shed their skins often, sometimes weekly or even daily. And they eat their old skin, kind of like recycling!
|
| Most frogs will drown if they stay underwater for too long. Swimming uses up more oxygen than their skin can provide, so they need to surface and breathe with their lungs. (The few frogs that can stay underwater longer have extra skin folds and flaps which they use to take in even more oxygen.)
|
| Think about it: tadpoles are mostly herbivores, while adult frogs are carnivores. I guess we should call the algae most tadpoles eat "baby food."
|
| Some of the strange child-raising habits of frogs include caring for tadpoles in folds of skin on the mother's back (Surinam Toad), guarding tadpoles inside the father's mouth (Darwin's Frog), or carrying eggs on the father's legs (Midwife Toad). The Bromeliad Frog lays her eggs in little puddles on the leaves and petals of flowers that grow high up in the trees of the rain forest, while Glass Frogs and Asian Tree Frogs lay their eggs on leaves overhanging the water—when tadpoles hatch out, they drop to the water below to swim around.
|
| The Paradoxical Frog seems to get the size thing backwards: as a tadpole, it can be up to 10 inches long, but the adult frog is usually about 3 inches long! (A paradox is a puzzling contradiction.)
|
| A lot of predators eat frogs. The list includes water predators such as fish, otters, wading and water birds (ex. herons and ducks), and snakes, also land predators such as birds (ex. crows and owls), rats, foxes, hedgehogs, cats, and more snakes.
|
| Frogs leap in a zigzag pattern to confuse predators.
|
| A frog's tongue can be as long as a third of its body length. When not in use, the tongue is folded in the frog's mouth, with the tongue's root attached in the front of the mouth.
|
| Frogs have a row of tiny upper teeth, but they're just for gripping prey. Frogs swallow their food whole.
|
| Frogs are cold-blooded. They jump in the water to get cool, and they sit in the sun to get warm. They really do sit on lily pads sometimes.
|
| Frogs eat lots of insects and worms and spiders, but big frogs like bullfrogs may also eat mice, baby birds, lizards, fish, smaller frogs, and snakes.
|
| New Zealand has only three native frog species. (There are more than 4000 species of frogs and toads world-wide, with the largest number of species living in Earth's rainforests.)
|
| Most frogs are nocturnal.
|
| A Common European Frog lays some 1000-3000 eggs per year, but so many tadpoles are eaten by predators that only about a dozen are likely to make it to froggy adulthood.
|
| The Costa Rican Flying Frog can glide as far as 50 feet by spreading out his large webbed feet the way a flying squirrel does.
|
| Some Glass Frogs are semi-transparent, so you can see their internal organs through their skin—hence the name.
|
| Many frog species are dying out due to pollution, human conversion of wetlands and rain forests to other uses, and global warming that shifts habitats.
|
Links and Sources
- All About Frogs, by Jim Arnosky, Scholastic Press, New York, 2002.
- Eyewitness Amphibian, by Dr. Barry Clarke, DK Publishing, New York, 2005.
- Frogs and Other Amphibians, by Bobbie Kalman, Crabtree Publishing Company, New York, 2005.
- Frogs and Toads, by Steve Parker, Sierra Club Books for Children, Quarto Publishing, San Francisco, 1992.
- Frogs and Toads, by Bobbie Kalman and Tammy Everts, Crabtree Publishing Company, New York, 1994.
- The Life Cycle of a Frog, by Bobbie Kalman and Kathryn Smithyman, Crabtree Publishing Company, New York, 2002.
- Fun frog fiction—read Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books and Jonathan London's Froggy books, especially Froggy Gets Dressed.
- Good lists of frog links can be found at Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Kids and at Kennesaw State University. Also check out Museum in a Box.
- Try All About Frogs, especially Frog Songs, where you can hear frog sounds and find links to other frog song recordings.
|
|
