A frog in Ecuador's western Andean cloud forest changes skin texture in minutes, appearing to mimic the texture it sits on.
Plants & Animals
Mar 23, 2015
1
446
Scientists say that a large, now extinct, frog called Beelzebufo that lived about 68 million years ago in Madagascar would have been capable of eating small dinosaurs.
Plants & Animals
Sep 20, 2017
0
440
A new treefrog species was discovered during a two-week expedition to a remote tabletop mountain at Cordillera del Cóndor, a largely unexplored range in the eastern Andes.
Plants & Animals
Jan 03, 2019
0
2295
The starry dwarf frog is an expert hider. Plunging into leaf litter at the slightest disturbance, it has successfully evaded attention for millions of years—until now.
Plants & Animals
Mar 12, 2019
0
354
It may be hard to imagine competing over who gets to kiss a frog, but when it comes to mating, a new study concludes that some frogs have moved out of the pond onto land to make it easier for the male in the pair to give ...
Evolution
Jul 26, 2016
0
6
Frog mucus is loaded with molecules that kill bacteria and viruses, and researchers are beginning to investigate it as a potential source for new anti-microbial drugs. One of these "host defense peptides," courtesy of a colorful ...
Biochemistry
Apr 18, 2017
0
891
A team of scientists designed a device that can induce partial hindlimb regeneration in adult aquatic African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) by "kick-starting" tissue repair at the amputation site. Their findings, appearing ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 06, 2018
2
458
The mass extinction that obliterated three-fourths of life on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs, set the stage for the swift rise of frogs, a new study shows.
Evolution
Jul 03, 2017
3
343
University of California, Berkeley, herpetologist Jim McGuire was slogging through the rain forests of Indonesia's Sulawesi Island one night this past summer when he grabbed what he thought was a male frog and found himself ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 31, 2014
0
0
One key to animal survival is bitter taste——the better to avoid ingesting potentially harmful poisons or foods. The evolution of bitter taste has been a hot topic amongst evolutionary biologists, and with more and more ...
Evolution
Oct 08, 2014
0
0
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
