African Clawed Frog

African Clawed Frog Classification and Evolution
The African Clawed Frog is a large species of flat Frog that is primarily found dwelling at the bottom of lakes and rivers. The African Clawed Frog is also known as the Platanna and has a number of very unique features that mean it is specially adapted to it's habitat. The African Clawed Frog is thought to have originated in South Africa, and is today found naturally across the African continent. The African Clawed Frog has also been introduced to the Americas and parts of Europe.

African Clawed Frog Anatomy and Appearance
The average adult African Clawed Frog grows to about 12 cm in length, and weighs around 200g. The African Clawed Frog is often a greenish, grey colour although other colours of the African Clawed Frog are not uncommon (such as albino). The colour of the African Clawed Frog's skin, along with it's mottled pattern, gives it more camouflage from hungry predators. They have a line of stitch-marks along either side of their bodies which act as sense organs to detect prey in the surrounding water. Their eyes and nose are located on top of the head enabling them to see and breathe but without being too visible.

African Clawed Frog Distribution and Habitat
The African Clawed Frog is most commonly found in eastern and southern Africa, along the African Rift Valley where they prefer stagnant waters to fast-flowing streams. African Clawed Frogs are bottom-dwelling animals and will only leave the safety of the water if they are forced to migrate. They inhabit warm shallow creeks and rivers during the summer and move into the flooded forests during the rainy season. Due to introduction by Humans, the African Clawed Frog can now be found in numerous freshwater habitats outside of Africa where they can be a very invasive species.

African Clawed Frog Behaviour and Lifestyle
The African Clawed Frog spends its whole life in water, except for poking its head up to the surface from time to time to breathe. The African Clawed Frog can swim at astonishing speeds sideways, backwards, forwards, up and down, and in all other directions. It is a ferocious predator and once food has been spotted, the African Clawed Frog then catches it's prey using it's claws, which shovel it into the African Clawed Frog's mouth. The African Clawed Frog has evolved very successfully as a bottom-dwelling animal, which means that it has greater protection from predators and a better choice of food.

African Clawed Frog Reproduction and Life CyclesFemale African Clawed Frogs are often nearly double the size of the males, and are able to reproduce more than once a year. After mating, the female African Clawed Frog can lay thousands of eggs at a time on an underwater object, which are held together in the water by a jelly-like substance. After hatching, the African Clawed Frog tadpoles begin their life in the water until they grow legs and are able to venture out onto the river banks if need be. The African Clawed Frog is known to have a long lifespan for small aquatic animals, and can live to around 5 to 15 years in the wild. Some adult African Clawed Frogs have been recorded to live to nearly 30 years old in captivity.

African Clawed Frog Diet and Prey
The African Clawed Frog is a carnivorous animal and an apex predator within it's underwater environment. The African Clawed Frog's main food is Water Bugs and small Fish but the African Clawed Frog is also known to eat it's own skin whenever it is shed. African Clawed Frogs also hunt other small invertebrates such as Insects, Spiders and Worms, which it scoops into it's mouth using it's clawed front feet. African Clawed Frogs in captivity have a much less varied diet which primarily consists of Worms.

African Clawed Frog Predators and Threats
Due to its small size, the African Clawed Frog has a number of natural predators within its native environment, that occur both in and out of the water. Small mammals including Rodents, Cats and Dogs, and numerous Birds and Reptiles, all prey on the African Clawed Frog, but herons are their most common threat. By living on the muddy bottoms of lakes and rivers, the African Clawed Frog can remain safely hidden for much of the time, and only it's eyes and nose appear above the water-line when it surfaces. Although not as vulnerable as many other amphibians, the African Clawed Frog is also being threatened by water pollution.

African Clawed Frog Interesting Facts and Features
The African Clawed Frog is named for their unique feet, as their hind feet are webbed but their front legs have clawed toes instead, which are used to help shovel food into their mouths. In the 1940s the African Clawed Frog became the world's first pregnancy test for Humans, which although barbaric, has led to them being found worldwide today. The African Clawed Frog has also been a popular test subject for scientific research for in general. They are known to be highly aggressive animals and particularly ferocious amphibians.

African Clawed Frog Relationship with Humans
Over the years, Humans have managed to find a number of uses for the African Clawed Frog in our day to day lives. The most notable (and probably cruellest) of these practises was the use of the African Clawed Frog females as a type of pregnancy test. The hormone produced by Human babies (passed on through the mother's urine) known as HCG, induces ovulation in the female African Clawed Frog. Humans also use them in laboratories worldwide for research and teaching. Habitat loss and water pollution caused by people nearby is also having a drastic effect on African Clawed Frog populations.

African Clawed Frog Conservation Status and Life Today
Although the African Clawed Frog has been classified as being at Least Concern from imminent extinction, population numbers have fallen in certain areas due to deteriorating water quality. Elsewhere, African Clawed Frog populations around the world have often become non-native pests to the local plants and wildlife.

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New Poison Frog Species Evolving Before Our Eyes, Study Says

A poison dart frog from Peru that mimics its neighbors in incredible detail is evolving into a new species, scientists believe.

The mimic frog (Ranitomeya imitator) is the first vertebrate, and only the second known animal, to suggest that mimicry can split populations into separate species, according to a study published recently in Nature Communications. The other animal is a group of Heliconius butterflies, which are also found in South America.

Ranitomeya imitator, dubbed Varadero, a poison dart frog that mimics its neighbor R. fantastica, is seen in San Gabriel de Varadero, Peru. Photograph by Evan Twomey

We can’t hold the frog in our hands just yet, though—the new species may not finish evolving for several thousand more years.

Separate geographic populations of R. imitator can look wildly different, depending on the frog species they’re mimicking. In north-central Peru, two R. imitator populations colorfully masquerade as two contrasting poison frog species: The splash-back poison frog (R. variabilis) or red-headed poison frog (R. fantastica).

Source: Here

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Tiny frogs host an illusion on their backs

Would you recognize a stop sign if it was a different shape, though still red and white? Probably, though there might be a bit of a delay. After all, your brain has long been trained to expect a red-and-white octagon to mean “stop.”

The animal and plant world also uses colorful signals. And it would make sense if a species always used the same pattern to signal the same thing — like how we can identify western black widows by the distinctive red hourglass found on the adult spiders’ back. But that doesn’t always happen. Even with really important signals, such as the ones that tell a predator, “Don’t eat me — I’m poisonous.”

Consider the dyeing dart frog (Dendrobates tinctorius), which is found in lowland forests of the Guianas and Brazil. The backs of the 5-centimeter-long frogs are covered with a yellow-and-black pattern, which warns of its poisonous nature. But that pattern isn’t the same from frog to frog. Some are decorated with an elongated pattern; others have more complex, sometimes interrupted patterns.

The difference in patterns should make it harder for predators to recognize the warning signal. So why is there such variety? Because the patterns aren’t always viewed on a static frog, and the different ways that the frogs move affects how predators see the amphibians, according to a study published June 18 in Biology Letters.

Bibiana Rojas of Deakin University in Geelong, Australia, and colleagues studied the frogs in a nature reserve in French Guiana from February to July 2011. They found 25 female and 14 male frogs, following each for two hours from about 2.5 meters away, where the frog wouldn’t notice a scientist. As a frog moved, a researcher would follow, recording how far it went and in what direction. Each frog was then photographed.

Sixty-four percent of the frogs appeared to move randomly. The remaining 36 percent, though, kept to a single direction. These frogs also moved around three times faster than their random-moving brethren.

The frogs’ color patterns split into the same two groups: Random movers had more interrupted patterns. Directional frogs tended to have more elongated coloring.

A frog’s movement affects what a potential predator sees. For the directional frogs, “this pattern–movement combination might create the illusion of a static pattern or a pattern with a greatly reduced speed that affects predators’ abilities to track the trajectory of moving individuals and predict their attack angle,” the researchers write. “This may be more pronounced when movements occur at a higher speed and over longer segments, as in these frogs.”

The random- and slow-moving frogs may get a different benefit from their patterning: “Interrupted patterns may be visually disruptive or cryptic at a distance, and the combination of disruptive patterns and slower movements, or alternating movement and freezing, might be advantageous for the avoidance of motion-oriented predators,” the researchers note.

Since both combinations of pattern and movement can be of benefit to the frogs, natural selection is unlikely to weed out one or the other.

Source: Here

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Desert Rain Frog: Dangerous Beast or Adorable Squeaky Toy?

Breviceps macrops is a frog that is native to the coast of Namibia and South Africa. The frog spends most of the day burrowed in the sand where it is cool and moist, but comes out to feed on insects and their larvae. Unfortunately, these little guys are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, due to continued habitat destruction from human activities like expanding roadways and diamond mines

Like many other ferocious African animals, the Desert Rain Frog lets out a fearsome roar when threatened. Wildlife photographer Dean Boshoff was brave enough to get close so that we could hear how the frog reacts when someone dares to enter the frog's territory.

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Breviceps macrops is a frog that is native to the coast of Namibia and South Africa. The frog spends most of the day burrowed in the sand where it is cool and moist, but comes out to feed on insects and their larvae. Unfortunately, these little guys are listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, due to continued habitat destruction from human activities like expanding roadways and diamond mines
Like many other ferocious African animals, the Desert Rain Frog lets out a fearsome roar when threatened. Wildlife photographer Dean Boshoff was brave enough to get close so that we could hear how the frog reacts when someone dares to enter the frog's territory.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/desert-rain-frog-dangerous-beast-or-adorable-squeaky-toy#yd4Bs8oZ8m2vosWL.99

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Frogs Survive Subzero Temperatures by Living as Ice Cubes

No matter how rough a winter you think you had, it was nothing compared to what a wood frog survives every year. Some of these little amphibians are still waiting for spring, when they’ll thaw out and turn from frog-shaped blocks of ice back into animals. Recently, scientists took a close look at wood frogs living deep in the Alaskan woods and learned that they’re even more impressive than we’d imagined.

Wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) are known for their skill—more like a superpower, really, in the animal world—of freezing solid for the winter. Forget migrating to warmer climes or hibernating in caves: they hunker down and let the ice take them. It crackles through their thumb-sized brown bodies, freezing the skin, the blood, the brain. This would kill most animals easily. But come spring, the wood frog reanimates itself and hops off to breed like nothing ever happened.

Most research on this species has looked at frogs from the Midwest or southern Canada. It’s been reported that temperatures below –7°Celsius (about 20°F) can kill the frogs. A laboratory study found that being frozen for more than 2 months is often fatal. Yet the frogs’ range extends into the Arctic Circle in Alaska and Canada. Even below the Arctic Circle, their habitat in Alaska can remain below freezing for half the year, and temperatures can reach –20°C.

Does winter here wipe out large numbers of wood frogs—or are they hardier than we think? Don Larson, a PhD student at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, studied wood frogs both in the lab and the Alaskan forests to look for the answer.

Larson and his coauthors found 18 wood frogs that were preparing for winter and put temperature sensors into their hiding places. They held other frogs in outdoor enclosures or brought them into the lab to be frozen artificially. (Video taken of the enclosure frogs, below, showed that the animals create holes for themselves under the leaf litter by spinning in circles—like a dog settling down for a nap. If uncovered by a scientist, the frogs dug back down until they were hidden again.)

Frogs in the wild stayed frozen for an average of 193 days. During this time, sensors showed that the temperature in their habitats averaged –6.3°C (21°F). At some points, temperatures dropped as low as –18.1°C, or just below 0 Fahrenheit. Despite the conditions, which were worse than anything recorded for wood frogs before, every frog survived.

Their secret may be the key to any good popsicle: sugar.

Wood frogs use the simple sugar molecule glucose, Larson explains, to protect their cells while their bodies are freezing. Packing their tissues with glucose keeps them from drying out too much while ice is crystallizing around their cells. It also prevents any ice from forming within the cells themselves—which is “always lethal,” Larson says.

Compared to frogs that were frozen in the lab, wood frogs frozen outdoors had more than 10 times as much glucose in some of their tissues. This may be because as fall turned into winter, the temperature repeatedly fell below freezing and warmed up again. Frogs pump out glucose as soon as they notice themselves starting to freeze. In the lab, they only had one chance to do this as scientists turned down the temperature. But in the wild, each early cycle of freezing and thawing sent more glucose through their bodies.

While glucose protects cells at the moment of freezing, antifreeze chemicals might help protect frogs from the long-term side effects of being an ice cube. Larson found a molecule called antifreeze glycolipid (AFGL) in wood frogs’ tissues. He explains that AFGL sits on the outsides of cells and attaches to ice crystals as they form. It seems to prevent ice from sneaking across the cell membrane into the cell itself. AFGLs “have been found in insects, plants, and one other frog species,” Larson says.

These antifreeze molecules “are one more piece of the puzzle” of how wood frogs survive freezing so well, Larson says. The frogs in his study froze longer and deeper than scientists had ever seen before—yet every single one of them woke up in the spring, unscathed. For this reason, Larson suspects they can survive even worse. “The limits,” he says, “have not even been touched yet.”

Source: Here

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Zoologger: Sabre-toothed frog is an evolutionary loner

Any lingering notion that frogs are cute little animals that are only a threat to flies must surely be laid to rest. The Emei moustache toad has a weaponised moustacheMovie Camera, used to gore rivals, and one African species can break its own toe bones to make claws.

To this intimidating list we now add a sabre-toothed frog. This beast is equipped with a pair of powerful fangs, and gets at least some of its food by munching on other frogs.

It sounds like an oddity, and the latest evidence suggests that it really is. This fanged frog belongs to a previously unknown family of frogs, genetically different from all others. Nowadays such discoveries are extremely rare.

Source: Here

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tiny rainforest frog

WASHINGTON — Some of the tiniest frogs on Earth have no middle ears or eardrums but can hear by using their mouths, scientists said Monday.

Gardiner's frogs live in the rainforests of the Seychelles, a series of 115 small islands in the Indian Ocean, north of Madagascar.

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Female Frogs Prefer Males That Can Multitask, Have More Impressive Mating Calls: Study

A new study found that female frogs choose their mates based on a characteristic that many humans also find desirable in a partner-being efficient and good at multitasking.

After studying the mating calls that male gray tree frogs use to woo their mates, researchers at the University of Minnesota discovered that female gray tree frogs prefer to mate with males that can effectively multitask by producing long, rapidly pulsating mating calls at a frequent rate, reports HNGN.

Source: Here

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Frog Wallpapers

 

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Frog Beautiful Skin Colors

Beautiful Frog Pictures

Frog is the class of amphibious animals, because frogs live in areas of moist and watery. Cycle breeding frogs from egg -> larva -> tadpole -> young frogs -> adult frog. Frogs as a tadpole breathes with gills as tadpoles living in water, after it turned into a frog gills turn into lungs because he lives on land.

Frog is a unique beast, because it has a diversity of shapes and colors. These are images of diversity and color betuk frog's body.

Frog

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Frog Black and White skin color

Frog Picture

diversity in body shape frog

Frog Animal Wallpaper

frog skin color diversity

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