Post #14800

Goliath: The largest frog. 4 kg, 80 cm. Catches bats in a jump of 3 meters! The Goliath frog is the largest living tailless amphibian, toad and frog. The body length - from nose to heels - is 80 centimeters, and the weight can reach 4.5 kilos. And for such size the frog pays a high, but very strange price: it is forced to engage in landscape design! Goliaths have a very small range; they can only be found in the dense forests of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, and only close to water - on the banks of rivers, lakes and swamps. In this environment, a large body gives an advantage: powerful paws allow them to stay in a fast current, and their large mass helps them hunt larger prey. For most of the day, frogs lazily cool off in the water and go out in search of food only when the heat of the day subsides. And even then, chosen is too strong a word. Rather, they simply climb onto some pebble and wait until something edible appears nearby. And edibles will appear quickly, because the main principle of constructing an amphibian’s diet is that everything that fits into its mouth is useful. Frogs readily eat worms, aquatic insects, spiders and centipedes, and the largest of them switch to fish, mammals, reptiles and smaller frogs. Scientists even once discovered a goliath swallowing a bat! How did the frog do it? She just jumped. Goliath is capable of jumping 3 meters in height, so all low-flying small things are its lawful prey. But her outstanding hunting skills fade into the background when the amphibians begin breeding season. Since they do not have vocal sacs, males cannot croak. Therefore, the fight for females is not a choral singing, where everyone tries to out-shout their neighbor, but a fight for territory, where frogs fiercely gnaw at every inch of the shore. Perhaps it was precisely this unusual sexual selection for frogs that was the reason for their enormous size. After all, the larger the male’s territory, the more females he will have. Having proven his strength in a fight, the male must show it again, but this time in creation. Now his task is to build a nest where the female will lay eggs. And here the male has some freedom for self-expression. Some frogs approach construction very formally: they clear a section of the bottom, dig a hole in it, and that’s all; the female can lay several thousand eggs. Such a nest is easy to make, but it is very vulnerable to small fish and shrimp, which readily eat the eggs. More sophisticated males dig a nest on land, which is more difficult. Here you need to carry stones and remove branches half the weight of a frog, while the tropical sun burns the soft skin and gravity presses towards the ground. In addition, the frog needs to make sure that water seeps into the hole, which will prevent the baby from drying out. Therefore, in any case, one of the parents guards the nest, patrolling it at night and staying nearby during the day. But which of the couple does this is a mystery.