Clawed frog: keeping an amphibian with clawed spurs

Due to its original appearance and the ability to live in an aquarium without access to land, the clawed frog is very popular even among novice aquarists. In nature, the clawed frog lives in Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Zaire, Cameroon) and has several subspecies that differ in habitat and size. The nominate species Xenopus laevis reaches 13 cm in length (clawed frogs are usually smaller in aquariums) and lives in various freshwater bodies - lakes, rivers, swamps and ponds. Leads an exclusively aquatic lifestyle and does not go onto land.

The appearance of the clawed frog is memorable, its physique is dense, strong, its head is medium-sized, flattened. The upper jaw is equipped with small teeth, the lower jaw is toothless. The front legs are short, the hind legs are long with long fingers, which are connected to each other by a wide swimming septum, three fingers are equipped with sharp claws, it is for this reason that the frog is called a clawed frog. There is a lateral line on the side, which is completely absent in terrestrial frogs, but is preserved in aquatic species. The color of the natural form of the clawed frog is dark - the back is from olive green to dark brown, the color is either plain or with large, irregularly shaped spots. The abdomen of the clawed frog is painted white or yellowish, sometimes with brown spots, but more often monochromatic. Frogs of this color are rarely found in aquariums; the more common is the albino form, bred in the 1970s in Moscow in the laboratory of the Institute of Developmental Biology of the USSR Academy of Sciences named after A.N. Severtsova. The albino form has red eyes and a pinkish or white body. Interestingly, the clawed frog is used as a test specimen in various biological studies and was the first vertebrate animal to be cloned.

Description

The amphibian's homeland is Africa, its range has spread to Europe and the American continent. The frog is called a spur frog because of the claws (spurs) on its hind legs. Claws up to 3 mm in size are involved in the process of swimming and hunting. The hind legs have webs. Forelegs with long, unwebbed toes. The body length of an individual in nature is up to 9 cm; at home, the clawed amphibian grows larger. The muzzle is short and rounded. The amphibian breathes air and has a good sense of smell. Color ranges from light to dark brown. Sometimes there are fuzzy patterns on the body. Local residents eat clawed amphibians.

Character

Spur amphibians are predators that do not like their neighbors. Nervous, if the animal is frightened, it begins to rush around the aquarium.

Lifespan

Amphibians live 10–15 years, with the exception of albinos, which live up to 10 years.

Almost 30 species of clawed frogs are known. Aquarists keep up to 5 species, but more often found in home reservoirs:

1. Albino is an artificially bred form. The size of the spur albino is up to 15 cm, the body color is pinkish. Feels comfortable in a small aquarium. Albinos live shorter lives than their counterparts and are prone to obesity.
2. Smooth clawed frog (xenopus laevis). The species has long been bred in aquariums. The color is more rich and dark.

Appearance

The frog has a large and flat head, on the side of which there are bulging eyes . Along with other land vertebrates, frogs have upper and lower eyelids. Under the lower eyelid of the amphibian, a nictitating membrane is found, which is called the “third eyelid”. Behind the eyes of an amphibian there is a special area covered with thin skin called the eardrum. Two nostrils with special valves are located above a huge mouth with small teeth.

The frog's front legs are characterized by the presence of four rather short toes. The hind legs of the animal are strong and well developed, equipped with five fingers, the space between which is covered with a specially leathery membrane. There are no claws on the animal's fingers. The only excretory part is located in the posterior region of the frog's body and is represented by the so-called cloacal opening. The frog's body is covered with bare skin, quite thickly lubricated with special mucus, which is abundantly secreted by the animal's numerous special subcutaneous glands.

This is interesting! The size of frogs depends on the species, so European frogs most often do not exceed one decimeter, and African goliath frogs are a kind of record holder in terms of size, therefore, with a half-meter size, they weigh several kilograms.

The size of an adult frog varies markedly depending on the species, but most often varies between 0.8-32 cm. The color of the skin is also very diverse and can be brownish, yellow, green or an unusual variegated color. Many members of the family prefer to camouflage themselves with herbaceous vegetation, foliage or branches, and therefore have characteristic green, gray and grayish-green skin.

War coloring, as a rule, indicates that the frog is poisonous, which is explained by the presence of special glands on the skin that produce substances that are toxic and harmful to human or animal health. Some frogs easily mimic, imitating dangerous amphibians to escape from enemies.

Content

Claw frogs are easy to keep and care for and are suitable for beginners. Provide animals with clean and cool water.

Aquarium

The volume of the aquarium for one clawed frog is 30–40 liters. This species lives submerged in water, so the aquarium must be filled completely with water. No land islands required. The clawed amphibian spends most of its time at the bottom, so give preference to a wide rectangular aquarium with a lid. Place a special thermometer in the water to know the exact temperature.

Water parameters

Spur amphibians prefer water with weak currents. Susceptible to the content of nitrogenous compounds in water.

Substrate

The substrate is an alternative to soil that makes it easier to keep the aquarium clean. Place the tank on a dark background or cloth.

Priming

Choose soil of medium and coarse fraction, otherwise the animal will swallow a particle of soil. The color is preferably dark so that the pet contrasts with the bottom and is easy to notice. It is permissible to place small pebbles so that swallowed stones can pass through the animal's digestive system. The soil must be non-sharp and free of hazardous impurities. If stones are collected outside, boil them. The thickness of the substrate is at least 4 cm.

Plants

Clawed frogs damage plants with their claws, so planting greens is not necessary. You can plant anubias, their hard leaves are stronger than those of other plants.

Shelters

The amphibian will happily hide among various shelters:

1. grottos;
2. caves;
3. jewelry made from coconut shells;
4. jugs;
5. driftwood

Filtration

Spur amphibians are unclean, but love clean water. The only equipment required is a filter. Water heating is needed if the temperature drops below 18 degrees. The filter should be powerful, but not create a strong current. If the aquarium is large, give preference to an external filter.

Lighting

Daylight hours should last no more than 12 hours. If the aquarium contains plants, be guided by their needs.

Coitus - amplexus

Types of amplexus

Frogs lay eggs like fish, since the eggs (eggs) and embryos lack adaptations for development on land (anamnia). Various species of amphibians lay eggs in surprising places:

• into burrows whose slopes descend into the water. When a tadpole hatches, it rolls into the water, where its further development takes place;
• the female forms nests or lumps with mucus collected from her skin, then attaches the nest to the leaves that hang over the pond;
• some wrap each egg in a separate leaf of wood or reed hanging over the water;
• the female of the species Hylambates brevirostris generally carries eggs in her mouth . Males of the Darwinian rhinoderma species have special pouches in the throat, where they carry the eggs laid by the female;
• in arid areas, narrow-mouthed frogs live, which lay eggs in damp soil, where the tadpole then develops, and the formed amphibian crawls onto land;
• females of the genus pipa carry the eggs on themselves. After fertilization of the eggs, the male presses them with his abdomen into the back of the female, laying the eggs in rows. Eggs that stick to plants or to the bottom of a reservoir cannot develop and die. They survive only on the female's back. A couple of hours after laying, a porous gray mass forms on the female’s back, into which the eggs are buried, then the female molts;
• some types of females form ring shafts from their own mucus;
• in some species of frogs, a so-called brood pouch is formed in the folds of skin on the back, where the amphibian carries eggs;
• Some Australian species of frogs carry eggs and tadpoles in their stomachs. During the period of gestation in the stomach, the function of producing gastric juice is turned off with the help of prostaglandin.

During the entire period of gestation of the tadpoles, which lasts two months, the frog does not eat anything, but remains active. During this period, she uses only internal reserves of glycogen and fat, which are stored in her liver. After the gestation process, the frog's liver decreases three times in size and there is no belly fat left under the skin.

After laying eggs, most females leave their clutch, as well as spawning waters, and go to their usual habitats.

The females usually surround the eggs with a large layer of gelatinous substance . The egg shell plays a big role, since the egg is protected from drying out, from damage, and most importantly, it protects it from being eaten by predators.

After laying, after some time, the shell of the eggs swells and forms into a transparent gelatinous layer, inside of which the egg is visible. The upper half of the egg is dark, and the lower half, on the contrary, is light. The dark part heats up more, as it uses the sun's rays more efficiently. In many species of amphibians, lumps of eggs float to the surface of a reservoir, where the water is much warmer.

Low water temperature delays the development of the embryo. If the weather is warm, the egg divides many times and forms into a multicellular embryo. Two weeks later, a tadpole emerges from the egg - a frog larva.

Reproduction

In an aquarium, frogs breed once a year. Encourage animals to breed by replacing 30% of the water. Shade the aquarium and temporarily turn off the filter. Maintain the temperature at 22–25 degrees. During the day, the female lays about 200 eggs. After a few days, the offspring appears. To increase survival rate, transfer the parents to another aquarium. The emerging tadpoles eat on the 7th day of life. Feed them chopped adult food. Provide the offspring with stable water parameters and volume at the rate of 1 liter per 10 individuals. The transformation into frogs is completed after 2 months.

Cleaning

You should change the water (at least 20% of the total volume), as well as clean the aquarium, weekly.

The water used for replacement should stand for 2-3 days. You can add a special conditioner to it, which will quickly clean tap water of chlorine and make it suitable for frogs to live in.

The aquarium needs to be cleaned every week.

Carefully remove waste from the filter, glass and soil.

Do not use detergents to wash the soil and decorations.

Diseases

Pets get sick when the temperature is inappropriate, the water is excessively polluted, or parasites are introduced by live food. Animals are susceptible to:

1. Infection with nematodes. The skin takes on a grayish tint and flakes off. The amphibian loses its appetite and loses weight. Upon closer examination, small worms are visible. Treated with most parasite medications, such as Panacur (for lung nematodes) or piperazine (for intestinal nematodes).
2. Fungal infections. On injured areas, growths similar to cotton wool form. Treat clawed frogs with salt baths and solutions.
3. Sepsis. The disease is also called “red leg”. The animal loses its appetite, the abdomen becomes reddish, and the skin turns pale. In advanced stages, the paws swell and ulcers appear. Baths with sulfadimidine (15 ml per 10 liters of water) are effective against infection.
4. Dropsy. The clawed frog's body swells. Remove the sick individual and add Gentomycin to the water.

Diet

Frogs eat all living things that can fit in their mouths. These are spiders, worms, slugs, larvae and even small fish. They catch prey using their sticky tongue. His movements are so fast that the victim has no opportunity to escape.

Rice. 8. Lake Frog The frog's tongue can curl back into its mouth in 0.15 seconds.

Frogs and toads help control insect populations around the world. Their appetite for small pests is usually beneficial, but can sometimes lead to disaster. Now you know that frogs have their own unique structural features and are a link in the food chain in nature. And not all species are harmless and safe for humans, which must be remembered when traveling to tropical countries. For even more interesting facts about frogs, watch the video below.

Habitat in nature

Clawed frogs live in Eastern and Southern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Congo, Zaire, Cameroon). In addition, they were introduced (artificially populated) in North America, most of Europe, and South America and adapted well there.

They live in all types of water bodies, but prefer small currents or standing water. They tolerate different values ​​of acidity and water hardness well. Hunts insects and invertebrates.

These are rather passive, but very hardy frogs. The lifespan of the clawed frog is up to 15 years, although some sources say about 30 years!

During the dry season, when the reservoirs dry up completely, they burrow into the silt, leaving a tunnel for air flow. There they fall into torpor and can live in this state for up to a year.

If for some reason the pond dries up during the rainy season, the clawed frog can travel a long way to another reservoir.

However, this is a completely aquatic frog that can’t even jump, only crawl. But she swims great. She spends most of her life under water, rising to the surface only for a breath of air, as she breathes with well-developed lungs.

Where do frogs live?

Frogs live almost everywhere; they can be found on all continents of the earth, with the exception of Antarctica. Since frogs do not really like the cold, they are not often seen in cold Arctic latitudes (although there are several species that live there too). But many species of frogs tolerate our temperate climate well. As we wrote above, frogs in winter sink to the bottom of reservoirs, that is, they move into the water element, so that with the onset of spring they rise to the surface again.

Also, many species of frogs live in the tropical latitudes of Africa, Asia and South America.

Description

There are several subspecies of frogs in the genus, but they are quite similar and it is unlikely that anyone in pet stores will understand them. We will talk about the most common one - Xenopus laevis.

All frogs of this family are tongueless, toothless and live in water. They do not have ears, but they have sensory lines along the body with which they sense vibrations in the water.

They use their sensory fingers, sense of smell, and lateral lines to search for food. They are omnivores and eat everything living, dying and dead.

If you have a question - why was she called a spur, then look at her hind legs. The frog uses its front legs to push food into its mouth, but its back legs tear apart the prey if necessary.

Remember that these are omnivores, including scavengers? They can eat dead fish, for example.

For this purpose, long and sharp claws are located on the hind legs. They reminded scientists of spurs and the frog was named spur frog. But in English it is called “African Clawed Frog” - African clawed frog.

In addition, the claws also serve for self-defense. The caught frog presses its paws and then sharply straightens them, trying to slash the enemy with its claws.

In nature, these frogs are most often green in different shades with a light-colored abdomen, but in aquariums, albinos with red eyes are more popular. They are often confused with another species of frog, the pygmy clawed frog.

However, it is quite easy to distinguish them from each other. Clawed frogs have membranes only on their hind legs, while African dwarf frogs have membranes on all their legs.

Xenopus laevis can live up to 15 years in the wild and up to 30 years in captivity. In nature they reach 13 cm, but in an aquarium they are usually smaller.

Every season they molt and then eat their skin. Despite the absence of a vocal sac, males make a mating call of alternating long and short trills, contracting the internal muscles of the larynx.

Tips before buying an amphibian

Before you get an African clawed frog, you need to know that its compatibility with other inhabitants of the aquarium is very low. And if the owner wants to create an amazing corner of the underwater world, where there are various ornamental animals, then such an amphibian will not be able to coexist with them.

Before purchasing clawed frogs, you should study information about their nutrition, housing and health maintenance

The most important thing is to purchase an aquarium of a suitable size. To do this, you need to decide on the number of pets that will live in it.

The first frog can be taken for free, “in good hands” from those owners who have not coped with its maintenance.

If you hand feed such a frog, it will very soon cease to be afraid of communicating with its owner.

Care and maintenance in the aquarium

Since this is a completely aquatic frog, it requires a spacious aquarium and does not require land. The optimal volume for keeping is quite difficult to calculate, but the minimum is 50 liters.

Despite the fact that they cannot jump and live in water, the aquarium must be covered with glass. These frogs are able to get out of the aquarium and travel in search of other bodies of water, as they do in nature.

For maintenance you will need:

• aquarium from 50 liters
• cover glass
• shelters in the aquarium
• gravel as soil (optional)
• filter

The question of soil is open because on the one hand it makes the aquarium look more beautiful and natural, on the other hand food debris and waste accumulate in it, which means the water quickly loses its purity.

If you decide to use soil, it is best to choose medium-sized gravel. The frog can swallow sand and fine gravel, which is undesirable.

Water parameters for the clawed frog are of no practical importance. They live well in both hard and soft water. Tap water must be allowed to stand so that the chlorine evaporates from it. Of course, you cannot use water after osmosis and distillate.

You need to place shelters in the aquarium. These can be artificial and live plants, driftwood, pots, coconuts, etc. The fact is that these are nocturnal animals; during the day they are less active and prefer to hide.

Important point ! Even though they are frogs and must live in a swamp, they need clean water in the aquarium. Firstly, you need to replace it with fresh one weekly (up to 25%). Secondly, use a filter. Ideally, an external filter, with a focus on mechanical filtration.

Clawed frogs love to eat and produce a large amount of waste during feeding. This waste quickly poisons the water in the aquarium, leading to the death of the frogs.

They are indifferent to lighting. This is a big plus, since they don’t need lamps at all, let alone special ones. If you are not aware, many species of amphibians (especially those that live both in water and on land) require special heating lamps.

Claw frogs live in water and do not need lighting at all. You can use a lamp to make the aquarium better visible, you just need to respect the length of daylight hours and turn off the lights at night. Also, don't use lights that are too bright.

Another advantage in keeping is their undemanding temperature. Regular room temperature is comfortable for them, but 20 – 25 °C would be ideal.

Lifestyle of a frog

Frogs love to jump on grass wet with dew. During this time, they replenish their water supply and breathe through their skin. But in cold and dry weather, they huddle in shelters, which can be small fir trees, rotten stumps, snags, and piles of brushwood. If there is no suitable shelter nearby, frogs bury themselves in leaf litter.

Despite its excellent jumping ability, the grass frog is far from a fast walker. In a whole week, she sometimes travels only thirty meters long. And only in the most hunting, wet weeks, the range increases to half a kilometer. It's not easy to run away from the enemy at that speed. Therefore, the frog prefers not to catch his eye. It achieves this goal thanks to its ability to change color, adapting to the color of the surrounding soil.

The spectrum of the grass frog is much richer than that of the pond frog. This is explained by the fact that the first one spends most of its life on land, where the palette is very diverse. The pond frog usually lives in water and hides among thickets of green plants. Therefore, her palette is more modest: from dark green to yellowish-green. The change in color depends on the regulation of body temperature in accordance with the well-known physical law: dark objects absorb heat, and light ones reflect it. However, color is affected not only by temperature, but also by background color, light, and humidity. Frogs perceive changes in these factors directly through the skin, as evidenced by experiments on blind animals.

Frog skin has special colored cells - black, orange, white. They can expand and contract. Color change is also carried out due to the movement of special colored particles. Such a variety of sensitive elements makes it possible to perceive such optical properties of light as decomposition, refraction, reflection, and scattering. This entire complex mechanism responsible for skin coloring is regulated by the nervous system and the endocrine glands - the pituitary gland and the pineal gland.

One of the most original adaptations to living conditions in the border zone between land and water is the frog's hearing aid. It turns out that she perceives sound signals through three channels. In the air, sound waves are captured by the sensitive cells of the inner ear, through the eardrum and ear bone. Sounds traveling through the soil are perceived by the bones and muscles of the limbs and are transmitted through the bones of the skull to the inner ear. And finally, sounds in water, as zoologists suggest, are captured by the skin and enter the inner ear through the circulatory system. In the latter case, sound travels through a homogeneous medium: water - blood - fluid of the inner ear.

This is how simply and wittily these animals coped with difficult living conditions, how they were able to turn to their advantage even the difficulties caused by the need to adapt to life on the border of two environments.

Feeding

One of the most exciting processes, as over time, clawed frogs can take food from your hands. At the same time, you don’t have to be afraid of bites, since they don’t have teeth. As well as the language, however.

What to feed? The choice is large. This can also be special food for aquatic frogs and turtles. This could be a live fish, such as a guppy. These could be insects from a pet store. Some even feed food for dogs and cats, but this is not recommended!

In general, live, frozen, artificial food - the clawed frog eats everything. Including carrion.

In any case, remember about balance and alternate feeds.

How much food to give a frog needs to be determined experimentally. Much depends on age and size. As a rule, they are fed daily, giving as much as the frog can eat within 15-30 minutes.

Overfeeding usually causes less problems than underfeeding, as they simply stop eating when they are full. In general, you need to look at how your frog eats and looks. If she is obese, then feed her every other day, if she is thin, then daily and give her different foods.

frog eyes

The extraordinary sensitivity, miniaturization and reliability of the design of the frog's orientation organs are increasingly beginning to attract engineers. They have already built an “electronic eye” - a device based on the principle of a frog’s eye.

As you know, the most important part of the eye is the retina, which consists of a layer of photoreceptors, several layers of bipolar cells and one layer of ganglion cells. Photoreceptors - rods and cones - perceive light, transform it into biocurrents, amplify it and transmit it to bipolar cells. Bipolars process the information received and transmit it to the ganglia. Branches of the optic nerve already extend from the ganglia, along which biocurrents go to the brain. But it turned out that different groups of ganglia are strictly specialized. Some of them perceive only contrast, others - a moving edge, others - a curved edge, and others - different illumination.

Each type of irritation is transmitted along its own fiber of the optic nerve to a certain layer of the brain. The received information is processed in the brain, and the animal perceives the object as a whole.

Compatibility

Clawed frogs are aggressive and persistent hunters with a large appetite. They are omnivores and are capable of hunting small and medium-sized fish. They cannot be kept with small fish. But it is not advisable to keep them with large ones.

For example, cichlids (angelfish, astronotus) themselves can hunt clawed frogs, and other large fish can bite off their fingers.

In this regard, it is recommended to keep them separately. You can do it alone, but it’s better and more interesting in a group. This group can contain one female and several males. However, individuals must be selected of a similar size due to the frogs' tendency to cannibalism.

Reviews

These unusual pets will decorate your aquarium. They are emotional and sensitive. The clawed frog is fun to watch and care for. It's fun to hand feed her. Over time, pets will even be able to recognize their owner by voice.

Have you tried keeping a clawed frog in an aquarium? Would you like to? Share your experiences and opinions in the comments.

Sex differences

Male and female frogs can be easily distinguished by the following differences. Males are usually about 20% smaller than females, with slender bodies and legs. Males make mating calls to attract females, which sound very similar to the cry of a cricket underwater.

Females are larger than males and appear much plumper with bulges above their hind legs.

Both males and females have a cloaca, which is a chamber through which food waste and urine pass. In addition, the reproductive system is also emptied.

Mating games

Voice

Most male toads and frogs attract females of their species by voice, namely by croaking, which varies from species to species: in one species it is similar to the “trill” of a cricket, and in another it is similar to the usual “kva-kva” . You can easily find the voices of males on the Internet. The loud voice in the pond belongs to the males, while the females have a very quiet voice or no voice at all.

Courtship

• Appearance and color.

The males of many species of frogs, for example, tropical dart frogs, change their color during mating time and become black. Males, unlike females, have larger eyes, better developed sensory organs and an enlarged brain, respectively, and the front paws are decorated with so-called nuptial calluses, which are necessary for mating so that the chosen one cannot escape.

• Dance

The attention of females can be attracted by various movements . Colostethus trinitatis simply jump rhythmically on a branch, and Colostethus palmatus gets into exquisite poses when they see a female on the horizon, and other species living near waterfalls manage to wave their paws at the females.

Colostethus collaris males perform a courtship dance. The male crawls up to the female and croaks louder and faster, then crawls away, sways and jumps, while freezing on his hind legs in a vertical position. If the female is not impressed by the performance, she raises her head, showing her bright yellow throat, this discourages the male. If the female liked the male’s dance, then she watches the beautiful dance, crawling to different places to better see the male’s play.

Sometimes a large audience can gather: once scientists, observing Colostethus collaris, counted eighteen females that stared at one male and synchronously moved to another position. Having danced, the male slowly leaves, often turning around to make sure that the lady of his heart is following him.

In golden poison dart frogs, on the contrary, females fight for males . Having found a male who is croaking, the female slaps her hind legs on his body and places her front paws on him, and may also rub her head against the male's chin. The male with less ardor responds in kind, but not always. Many cases have been recorded when fights arose in this species of amphibian both between females and males for the partner they liked.

Are mealworms suitable for amphibians and reptiles to eat?

For most species of amphibians and reptiles, mealworms are a good food source. But they should not make up the majority of the diet, since their exoskeleton is difficult to digest. In addition, mealworms are very fatty, so they can cause obesity.

It is advisable to have a good tight-fitting lid on the aquarium, since newts can easily leave the home pond.

How to care for a found reptile or amphibian?

Often people find toads and turtles and try to take them home. But it is recommended to leave wild individuals in nature, since they do not adapt well to life in captivity. You can bring a reptile or amphibian from the street only when the terrarium is ready and you have the skills to care for these animals.

If you nevertheless have a wild reptile or amphibian, then you need to determine its species. Each type of toad, frog, and turtle requires certain conditions of detention: special humidity, temperature, diet. You can determine the type of pet using google.com. There you can also find sites with content tips. But it is necessary to compare the tips.

Touching little frogs, now sold in almost every pet store, make people have an irresistible desire to buy them.

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What do frogs eat?

The long history of development has developed in the frog such a valuable quality as unpretentiousness and indiscriminateness in food. If there is little food, the frog will starve for a day or a week.

A lot - eats everything, everything that is in a given place at a given time. The menu is very varied. Caterpillars and butterflies, bees and wasps, ants and beetles, dragonflies and mayflies, various larvae and snails, spiders and centipedes, slugs and worms, and so on and so forth. Moreover, the tastes are the same for almost all frogs, with the exception of the lake frog.

The latter clearly suffers from aggressive tendencies - it devours fish fry and even its own tadpoles. There are known cases when these frogs ate chicks.

But how many harmful insects can frogs really destroy? Herpetologist B.A. Krasavtsev calculated that on an area of ​​24 thousand square meters of meadows and fields there are on average 720 grass frogs. If one frog eats about seven insects per day, then during its waking hours (six months: from half of April to half of October) it destroys 7 X 180 = 1,260 specimens. Multiplying this number by the number of frogs on the site, we get an impressive figure: 907,200. Almost a million insects!

Benefits of frogs

But where the frog’s achievements are truly grandiose is, of course, in biology and medicine. For many decades, physiologists have used frogs in a variety of experiments and prefer them to other animals. The frog received this honor due to its phenomenal endurance and vitality, acquired over a long period of struggle for existence.

This kind of “love” on the part of researchers comes at a cost to frogs. They are caught in the hundreds of thousands. Man, for his economic needs, is taking away more and more vast territories from nature. And if forests, meadows and rivers are still protected, then wetlands and temporary reservoirs - the main habitats of frogs - are considered useless landscapes. They are mastered first. In addition, the progressive decline in the number of frogs is facilitated by a feature of their physiology: they grow slowly. The frog becomes capable of reproduction only in the third year and by the same time reaches a size sufficient to conduct experiments. That is why any human sabotage against nature (runoff of untreated water, flooding of land, landfills) has a very painful effect on frogs. They are accustomed to fighting a variety of natural phenomena, but they cannot resist human ingenuity.

The frog's services to biological science, medicine and agriculture are undeniable. It is not for nothing that monuments have already been erected in her honor in some countries.

Monument to the frog in Paris.

So let’s hope that our current and future monuments to the frog will be a tribute to its merits, and not an apology for the destruction of another representative of the animal world that could not compete with the pace of civilization.

Breeding

Those who are going to not only keep one or more frogs at home, but also breed these amphibians should know some of the peculiarities of reproduction.

These Hymenopterans become sexually mature quite quickly, at the age of about one year. Entering puberty, males announce this to the world with their songs, similar to the night chirping of grasshoppers. Reproduction of frogs is possible only in warm water - 26-28°. Without this condition nothing will work. Good lighting is also a must.

During their spawning, Hymenochirus swim in a vertical round spiral, whose apex touches the upper layer of water. Having reached the water surface, the female releases a small number of eggs. This usually happens in the evening or at night. The eggs are removed from the aquarium into a separate container. Or they leave only the eggs in the aquarium.

Eggs that are fertilized float on the water surface. Future tadpoles are protected while in the gelatinous membrane.

If there is a goal to breed frogs, then the breeding frogs, after throwing out their eggs, are removed from the spawning area. To do this, some frog lovers recommend this simple technique: you need to turn on the sprayer and immerse it partially in water. The sprayer, having dispersed the eggs, forms a free window on the surface of the water. You can carefully pull out the frogs through it. Then you need to immediately remove the sprayer.

After about two days, there will already be tiny frog tadpoles in the container. Their length is 3-4 mm in length.

At first, small tadpoles will hang without any movement, attached to the walls or plants of the aquarium. About 4 more days will pass and they will begin to swim independently and feed on ciliates. Later, the already grown tadpoles can be fed with special food. And only one month will pass and the tadpoles will become adult frogs.