Category: Amphibians

Suriname Toad With Eggs

Posted on by Bryan Hughes

Ok, weirdo.

This is a Pipa pipa (Surinam Toad) I photographed in Peru a couple of weeks ago – there were a lot of them! They’re entirely aquatic, and have a crazy reproductive process. After mating and eggs are ready, the male squishes them into swollen tissue on the back of the female (those white dots in their little back sacks. The eggs sink into the skin, and ride around with her for a few months. When they are ready to hatch, full little frogs (not tadpoles) emerge right from their mother’s back. What is more interesting to me is that at some point in the eggs-n-back part, the embryos are surrounded by highly vascular tissue, suggesting that nutrients and oxygen are transferred from the mother.

Greven, H., & Richter, S. (2009). Morphology of skin incubation in Pipa carvalhoi (Anura: Pipidae). Journal of Morphology, 270(11), 1311–1319. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.10749

Crested Toad with Tiger Beetles

Posted on by Bryan Hughes

One of the many forms of the Rhinella margaritifera complex sharing a spot above ground with a cluster of tiger beetles. Life on the ground in the Amazon can be a dangerous place, so it’s not uncommon to find animals spending time on leaves. In this case, the toad may be both trying to stay safe, or being that danger to the beetles.

I’ve seen tiger beetles cluster like this on leaves, which looks quite a bit from above like the typical holes in large leaves like this chewed by other insects. If it weren’t for the toad, I’d have passed by without a second glance.