Specimen Showcase | Baby Launcher Toad
- Hong Kong Biodiversity Museum
- Mar 10
- 2 min read
Many animals have become masters of camouflage, blending so well with the substrate in which they live on that they are hardly distinguishable from it🤔. Our species of today, a toad, is one of those amazing creatures but which also presents some other astonishing secrets which gave it, at least for a while, a reputation as a zoological curiosity.
Living in slow-moving water areas across the Amazon basin, the Common Surinam Toad, 𝘗𝘪𝘱𝘢 𝘱𝘪𝘱𝘢 (Linnaeus, 1758), from the Pipidae family, disguise itself as leaf litter underwater🍂. Unlike other toads, it has a flat brown body with bumpy skin which provides great camouflage for ambushing its prey; which includes small fishes, crustaceans and other invertebrates. This fully aquatic frog is also known as the star-fingered toad due to the presence of a star-shaped sensory lobe on each finger used for sensing potential prey⭐. Once a prey is detected, 𝘗𝘪𝘱𝘢 𝘱𝘪𝘱𝘢 will create a suction movement ingesting a large amount of water into its toothless, tongueless mouth. This sudden suction, complemented by the toad’s hands scooping the prey will ensure an efficient capture🥱.
But 𝘗𝘪𝘱𝘢 𝘱𝘪𝘱𝘢 has another astonishing secret, hidden on its back skin. If you pay close attention, you will notice little holes present on the back, especially on the lower half. Those are the scars of rough courtship and selfless maternity! During the mating ritual, the male will grab onto the female and together, they will perform acrobatic somersaults, sometimes for several hours, until the female releases around 60-100 eggs. After fertilization, males will push and stick the fertilized eggs onto the back of females. Over the next few days, the skin of the female will grow into pockets, surrounding the eggs like customized nests😲. Once the eggs hatch, babies will undergo the tadpole stage inside the back of their mother! After 3 to 4 months, once the juveniles are fully developed into formed toadlets, they will then pop out of the pockets, launching themselves into open water🚀, and start to live on their own!
If you look close enough, you can still see underdeveloped babies in our specimen at HKBM. This is an amazing example of maternal care🤱, and after all, toads are not that ‘cold blooded’, right?
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