Incredible frogs

I would like to introduce you all into one of my favorite animals, frogs.

Frogs belong to the class of amphibians, more specifically to the group of anurans.The main characteristics of this group are the lack of tail, short and wide body and legs used to jump long distances.

Most frogs live in stagnant waters or low-speed currents such as rivers, ponds or temporary pools with humid weather.

Some people confuse toads with frogs, they think they are the same but there are some characteristics that make them different, such as the type of skin, toads have dry and rough skin and frogs have it smooth and wet.Frogs prefer to jump and toads to march and

they live in small tunnels in the ground.

Frogs normally eat whatever they find that can fit in their mouth, like bugs (such as crickets), spiders, worms and even small fish or mice depending on the frog´s size.

Frogs usually live in small groups called an army, knot or colony. They stay together to protect each other and find food. When frogs are young they swim together like a type of school, just like fish do.

We cannot determine an specific height or weight to frogs in general as we can do with other animals, because there are a lot of different sizes and colors of frogs, from a tiny frog of the size of a nail to a giant frog of the size of a small dog.

Frog species

 There are more than 6,000 species of frogs discovered on Earth.

They are distributed on every continent, except the Antarctica, since all they need is a water source near them.

Some frog species have toxic skin, the bright colors on them usually warn you about their poisonous skin. Some frogs from South America can kill an adult human by the skin secretion they produce.

All of this species are amazing and unique, with different colors, size,weight and some characteristics that make them distinct from the 

I will show you some examples of my favorite frogs:

Budgett´s frog: Some people say that this frogs look friendly because of their cute face, but if they feel threatened, they will scream and may bite you with two small and sharp points in their mouth. 

Purple frog: They pass most part of their life underground, they are known for their purple skin, for their "pig nose" and because of their robust, cartoon-like appearance

Golden poison frog: This one is known as the most poisonous frog in the world, a single frog can kill around 10 humans, only with a very small quantity of this poison. They keep it in their skin glandles. They are originary from Colombia.

Goliath frog: This is the biggest frog on Earth. It grows up to 32 cm long and can weight up to 3.3 kilograms. They live in western Africa, because there is a lot of water. They can eat other amphibians and even bats. They can live up to 15 years in the wild and 21 years in captivity, a lot for being a frog, because the other ones live up to 4-10 years.

Mini mum frog: This is the smallest frog on Earth discovered till the moment. It grows up to 8 milimeters long. They were discovered in Madagascar. If you compare them with a cent it only fills a small part of it. When they were found they were declared as in extinction because it was only discovered an small area with a few ones living there.

Wallace's flying frog: They are also known as parachute frogs because they have huge webbed feet plus skin flaps on their sides, which catches air to help them glide from tree to tree. They are found in Southeast Asia.

Facts about frogs

 When a female frog is already mature (when they are between 2 months to 3 years old, depending on the species), she can lay from 2 to more than 50,00 eggs at once, one more time it depends on the species. This eggs will incubate for 48 hours to 23 days, with the protection of the male frog. Once the egg hatches, we call this creature a tadpole, that will have no legs, will have a tail and look like a kind of fish, cause they live underwater. Over time the tadpole will grow legs, lose its tail and become a frog, emerging from water to land. How long this process takes depends on the environmental factors.

There is scientific evidence that frogs existed since the dinosaurs were alive. That means they exist for more than 200 million years.

Frogs have a lot of predators, such as birds, fish and reptiles.

Frogs have an amazing night vision, incredible camouflaging ability and are very sensitive to movement, which helps them to find food and protect themselves of predators.

Some frogs can jump over 20 times their own length.

In Egypt, the frog is the symbol of life and fertility, and they had a frog-goddess named Heqet or Heket.

Only male frogs croak, and all the frog´s species have a special and a little bit different sound. That sound depends on the situation, it´s different when they want to attract a female, protect their territory or communicate.

How to prevent frogs extinction

Nearly one-third of the world's amphibians are threatened or extinct, which includes frogs mainly, that´s about 2,000 species in danger of extinction.

There are 466 frog species in the phase of critically endangered, and it´s estimated that 200 species of frogs have already gone extinct since the 1970s

The main reasons why frogs are becoming extinct are: Their habitat destruction, the introduction of non-native species like predatory fish, the climate change, and the pollution created by humans, especially water pollution, which is causing many deformities in frogs as well as poisoning them. Also more than three billion frogs are  eaten each year all around the world.

If all frogs die, a food source will be missing in the food chain of many animals, which  wil cause the animals that eat frogs to die, this continues until their populations get devasted.

Some things you can do to help frogs are:

• Try not to use pesticides 

• Save water, try to use as less as possible

• Don´t throw trash, especially to the lakes, rivers, etc.

We have to save the frogs because as any other living being, they have the right to live, they don't have to suffer or even get extinct. They are as important as any other animal or plant.