SOCIAL CLIMBERS
Climbing affords tree frogs a better view.
In addition to having panoramic vision, frogs
are able to see better at night than any other
animal and can perceive color in darkness
so extreme that we would be unable to see
anything at all. Color vision is useful when
searching for a mate or hunting for food.AVOID THE BURN
As amphibians, frogs are cold-blooded animals:
They don’t produce their own body heat or have
mechanisms such as sweating to cool off. Thus
they will change locations throughout the day
to maintain a relatively constant temperature,
staying in the sun to warm up and heading off
to the water to cool down.
T
he sun has just set, and down at the
pond things are still relatively quiet.
Then a voice calls out from the reeds,
and the fi rst “ribbit” is quickly joined
by an e ntire e nthusia stic choir. T he re
will be no peace at the pond tonight...
Though an army of frogs croaking
may sound disorganized, there is, in
fact, a system. Each frog has its own
“ribbit” that’s unmistakable to other
members of its species. One of the
main purposes of male croaking—in
addition to establishing the territory
of an individual—is to attract a female.With such a sense of purpose, it’s no
wonder a pond full of frogs can croak
at deafening levels. The coqui frog
can produce almost 100 decibels of
sound at a distance of 20 inches. The
“co” and the “qui” serve two different
purposes: The “co” is a territorial call
to warn other males, and the “qui” is
intended to lure females for mating.LIVING LEGEND
Some people would rather not hold
a frog, but many fi nd them appealing.
Perhaps deep in our genes we sense
that we owe the m a debt of gratitude.
Fossil records indicate that they made
the transition from water to land some
250 million years ago. If it weren’t for
this pioneering evolutionary effort,
we might still have gills and a tail and
be confi ned to living in murky waters
ourselves. Frogs can be found in and
around most bodies of fresh water
on every continent except Antarctica.There’s a species of wood frog (Rana
sylvatica) with a range extending from
the U.S. state of Georgia to Canada
and up into the Arctic Circle, that can
freeze, thaw out, and continue to live.
Telmatobius macrostomus (the Andes
smooth frog) is found at altitudes of
up to 14,000 feet in the mountains of
central Peru, and the Sahara frog is
found across North Africa from the
Western Sahara to Egypt.
You’d think frogs need incredibly
strong leg muscles to jump the way
they do. However, research with a
high-speed camera has shown that
the secret lies in their tendons. They
use their muscles to stretch their leg
tendons as far as possible before a
jump. When the tendons recoil, the
spring action propels the frog up to
50 times its body length. Compared
with frogs we’re doing it backwards,
which may explain why we can’t leap
hundreds of feet in a single bound. PHOTOS:^ NaturePL^ (3 );^
Bios;^ DPA;^ Rike_/Ge
tty;
Thorsten^ S
poe
rlein/Ge
tty.ideasanddiscoveries.com 17 May 2020