Most frogs emit a characteristic croak to attract the attention of a potential mate. But a few frog species that call near loud streams—where the noise may obscure those crucial love songs—add to their calls by visually ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 15, 2021
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150
A team of researchers from the Centre of the SAVA Region and the University of Antananarivo, both in Madagascar, and one from the University of Goettingen in Germany, has found evidence of a huntsman spider living in a northeastern ...
Frog calls are iconic sounds of summer in Australia. There are more than 240 species native to Australia, almost all of which are found nowhere else on Earth.
Ecology
Dec 29, 2020
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14
What would you do if you could be invisible? Would you use your power for good? For evil? Or just to avoid awkward conversations?
Plants & Animals
Dec 22, 2020
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Three Central American frog species have gone extinct and many others may soon follow as their populations are ravaged by a fungus that is spreading faster because of climate change, conservationists said Thursday.
Ecology
Dec 10, 2020
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4
The Southern Appalachian mountains are a global biodiversity hot spot for salamanders. Dr. Deb Miller and Dr. Matt Gray lead the Amphibian Disease Laboratory at the University of Tennessee and are looking at various strategies ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 09, 2020
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The 2019/20 Australian bushfires killed over 1 billion animals. Our frog species used their secret super powers to survive, but they still face extinction.
Plants & Animals
Nov 06, 2020
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A critically endangered species of frog seems to have a bright future after conservationists in Chile launched a rescue campaign that has produced 200 offspring.
Ecology
Oct 22, 2020
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8
"I have taken pains to verify this assertion, and have found it true that frogs, toads, and newts are absent from most oceanic islands"—thus states Charles Darwin in his well-known work "On the Origin of Species." For a ...
Ecology
Oct 09, 2020
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7
New research from the Australian Museum (AM) and UNSW Sydney published today in Conservation Science and Practice reveals that many frog species in southeastern Australia have initially survived following the unprecedented ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 28, 2020
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Archaeobatrachia Mesobatrachia Neobatrachia - List of Anuran families
Frogs are amphibians in the order Anura (meaning "tail-less", from Greek an-, without + oura, tail), formerly referred to as Salientia (Latin saltare, to jump). The name frog derives from Old English frogga, (compare Old Norse frauki, German Frosch, older Dutch spelling kikvorsch), cognate with Sanskrit plava (frog), probably deriving from Proto-Indo-European praw = "to jump".
Most frogs are characterized by long hind legs, a short body, webbed digits (fingers or toes), protruding eyes and the absence of a tail. Most frogs have a semi-aquatic lifestyle, but move easily on land by jumping or climbing. They typically lay their eggs in puddles, ponds or lakes, and their larvae, called tadpoles, have gills and develop in water. Adult frogs follow a carnivorous diet, mostly of arthropods, annelids and gastropods. Frogs are most noticeable by their call, which can be widely heard during the night or day, mainly in their mating season.
The distribution of frogs ranges from tropic to subarctic regions, but most species are found in tropical rainforests. Consisting of more than 5,000 species described, they are among the most diverse groups of vertebrates. However, populations of certain frog species are declining significantly.
A distinction is often made between frogs and toads on the basis of their appearance, caused by the convergent adaptation among so-called toads to dry environments; however, this distinction has no taxonomic basis. The only family exclusively given the common name "toad" is Bufonidae, but many species from other families are also called "toads," and the species within the toad genus Atelopus are referred to as "harlequin frogs".
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
