Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Frogs and Toads


We've learned a whole lot about snakes, now let's learn about frogs!

Frogs and toads are all part of the same group of animals in nature, called the "Anura" order.
Anura comes from an old Greek word meaning "without tail".

There is a smaller group of animals that is part of the Anura order, called the "Bufonidae" family, or sometimes called the "True toad" family.
But even in that family, some of those animals are still named frogs, like the harlequin frog which is a true toad!

So all toads are frogs (Anura), but not all frogs are toads (Anura Bufonidae).

A lot of times people think of frogs as the ones that go into water or are wet all the time, and toads as the ones with warts that are dry and live on land.

That's not always true either!
The European fire-bellied toad isn't a true toad even though it's called a toad, and it lives in the water.
And the Panamanian golden frog which is a true toad even though it's called a frog has smooth skin and lives in the water.

There are about 4,800 types of Anura, and only a few hundred of them are true toads.
So really most of them are frogs, even if we call them toads.

True toads don't have any teeth, and they have glands to spit poison from their skin, and they sometimes are warty but not always.
To really tell if it is a toad, you have to know about its skeleton, skin, mouth, glands and a lot of other things that you can't tell without a lot of research!


(from: wikipedia - frog)


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