Most of us know frogs as little, annoyingly chirpy creatures of the rain. Come spring, we are met with frogs hopping over our roofs; the little guys and girls can fit into our palms. But what if we told you there’s a giant frog species in New Guinea that can measure up to 12 inches when fully spread? The word ‘Goliath’ literally means ‘big’ and, oh boy, are Goliath frogs big! This is the largest known species of frogs, and it lives in the small ranges in the rainforests at the equator of western Africa.
Needing to always be close to water, the Goliath frogs will be found near waterfalls and swift-moving rivers. However, don’t be sad if you can’t spot them easily. Their greenish-brown cover acts as camouflage, and works well for them because they can hide close to moss and eat other little frogs. You read that right, Goliath frogs eat smaller frogs, but that’s not all their diet. They also eat insects, like a regular frog, and crabs. But how do they hunt? Simple, they come out at night, sit on rocks and look for anything they can eat.
Goliath tadpoles, though, only eat a certain kind of leaf found by waterfalls and swift rivers. And contrary to what we might think, these tadpoles come in normal tadpole sizes.
Only, they keep growing.
And growing.
And growing.
The largest frog on earth has been here before dinosaurs, for around 250 million years, and continues to live after the dino disappeared. But the rate at which they are disappearing themselves is alarming. The big cuties are losing their home because of logging, farming, and well, the needs of the constantly expanding human population। Another sad reason for their disappearance is because they are huge, and make for delicious and big meals.
So if you want to see Goliath frogs for real in the near future, we would ask you to hold that hunger!
You’ll also like the lizard that looks like Spiderman!
0 Comments