Fanged Frog Gives Birth To Tadpoles

  • 9 years ago
Usually when frogs reproduce they lay egg and the young emerge from them. A fanged frog, however, has been observed actually giving birth to tadpoles.

Usually when frogs reproduce they lay egg and the young emerge from them. A fanged frog, however, has been observed actually giving birth to tadpoles.

Scientists had suspected that this could be the case, but it’s taken them decades to chase down one of the amphibians.

They finally did so on Indonesia’s Sulawesi Island and got to the pregnant frog in the knick of time.

As soon as researcher Jim McGuire picked the specimen up, it began to release its young.

There wasn’t time to take video, but the University of California, Berkeley scientist and his colleagues did write about the experience and publish a study in the journal PLOS ONE.

They were able to establish that the frog found is a new species, but they’re still a bit cloudy on how it was able to become impregnated in the first place.

The males of the species aren’t equipped to deliver sperm in a manner required for internal fertilization.

There are some that do, but the process results in either the female laying fertilized eggs or delivering mini frogs.

This particular type of fanged frog has been declared by scientists as the first known to produce live tadpoles.

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