We were in a doctor’s office a few days ago and there on the wall was a poster that I’ve seen probably hundreds of times — its a drawing of a pelican preparing to eat a frog and the frog has a choke-hold around the pelican’s neck. The caption is “never give up.” Well, this looked to me like a good topic for this blog — never giving up is a trait we all at least desire…
But I gave up on that topic and decided that frogs would be better. I’ve heard that there are more than 6,000 type of frogs and they’ve been around for more than 200 million years. Out came my trusty dictionary and it told me that frogs are tail-less amphibians with moist skin and long hind limbs for leaping. There are both semi-aquatic and terrestrial species which live in wet habitats. Interesting, but not particularly exciting — I figured there must be more to frogs than this….
Further extensive research revealed that people who study frogs are called herpetologists and the fear of frogs is called ranidaphobia. Frogs shed their skin when they get too big for it — and — then they eat it.
There are tree frogs, bullfrogs, leopard frogs, cricket frogs but the biggest is the Goliath frog that originated in Cameroon (West Africa) and can grow to the size of a cat; the smallest comes from Cuba and is only 1/2 inch long. Frogs diets vary according to the type and size — small frogs eat insects like flies, spider and cockroaches but the larger ones eat snakes, birds and small mammals.
When I was a kid, we used the terms frogs and toads interchangeably — they are from the same family, but they differ in a lot of ways. Toads tend to have dry, lumpy skin and frogs have smooth skin. Frogs have small, fish like, teeth on their upper jaws and toads have no teeth at all. Frogs eyes tend to bulge from their heads and toads eyes appear more recessed. A frog lays its eggs in tight circular batches and a toad lays its eggs in long strings.
Frogs were the first land animals with vocal cords. No wonder the expression “a frog in my throat” became popular.
I’ve heard it said that if you kiss a frog it will turn into a prince. Most people say that that’s not possible — it only happens in fairytales. But I’m not so sure — where do you think the fairytale writers got the idea?
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