Images of mutated frogs have been stuck in my head for the longest time possible. I think I first came across them reading about pollution back in JC days. So while trawling the net for articles and images, I came across a more interesting
article.
There's a species of frogs (
Rheobatrachus silus), now thought to be extinct, that incubate their eggs in the STOMACH. The females swallows their fertilized eggs or tadpoles, shut down their digestive systems, and hatched their young in their stomachs. The young frogs secrete a certain hormones that halts the hydrochloric acid production in the female's stomach. About a month later the mother opened her mouth and regurgitated her tiny froglets. Imagine going on a one month fast!
Photo from Global Greenhouse Warming
Keith McDonald, the chief ranger with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service mentioned that it is possible to see the little frogs pushing their tiny hands and feet inside their mother’s swollen belly. *shudders*
Not unlike a case straight from the X-files, these frogs were discovered in the 1970s and vanished within 20 years. Apparently no one has seen any of them since. Some scientist speculates that a fungus, Chytrid, which is lethal to some amphibians is responsible for the extinction of the gastric-brooding frogs.
However, there remains a less "extreme" species of frogs known as....
Mouth brooders! Well, apparently there are species of frogs that incubate the young/tadpoles in their mouth. The Darwin's frog (
Rhinoderma darwinii), which is also sometimes called Darwin's toad, is a pudgy frog with a triangle-shaped head that ends in a very pointy snout.
Photo from Wikimedia CommonsWhat happens is that the males stays with the eggs laid by the female and when they are about to hatch, scoops them into his mouth where they will slide into his vocal sacs. As the males now longer need any vocalization to attract females, the vocal sacs now provide a safe place for the eggs to incubate and hatch into tadpoles.
That's not all, after hatching, the tadpoles remain in his vocal sacs for a good 50 - 70 more days where they continue to grow into froglets! Imagine a very distented frog ambling along slowly.... Scientists speculates that the froglets survive via two means.
- By slowly eating the leftover yolk from their eggs
- As well as some food provided by the male's body through the skin lining his vocal sac.
The new froglets crawl out of the vocal sac, through their father's mouth, and to the outside, where they can begin hopping about on land.
These frogs kind of reminds me of those wooden
russian dolls. Just.... a tad slimier.
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