...Frogs are a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (Ancient Greek an-, without + oura, tail). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" appeared in the early Triassic of Madagascar, but molecular clock dating suggests their origins may extend further back to the Permian, 265 million years ago. Frogs are widely distributed, ranging from the tropics to subarctic regions, but the greatest concentration of species diversity is found in tropical rainforests. There are approximately 4,800 recorded species, accounting for over 85% of extant amphibian species. They are also one of the five most diverse vertebrate orders. The body plan of an adult frog is generally characterized by a stout body, protruding eyes, cleft tongue, limbs folded underneath and the absence of a tail. Besides living in fresh water and on dry land, the adults of some species are adapted for living underground or in trees. The skin of the frog is glandular, with secretions ranging from distasteful to toxic. Warty species of frog tend to be called toads but the distinction between frogs and toads is based on informal naming conventions concentrating on the warts rather than taxonomy or evolutionary history; some toads are more closely related to frogs than to other toads. Frogs' skins vary in colour from well-camouflaged dappled brown, grey and green to vivid patterns of bright red or yellow and black to advertise toxicity and warn off predators. Frogs typically...
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...tree. On the ground at its feet, something strangely familiar hops by: a frog. Ichthyostega, prehistoric predecessor to the modern frog, lived 370 million years ago during the Devonian Period. Sometimes referred to as "the first four-legged fish," skeletal remains of this earliest-known amphibian were first discovered in East Greenland. Surprised? Few people realize just how ancient frogs are. For 190 million years, the ancestors of modern frogs have roamed (if not ruled) the earth, looking much the same as they do today. The secret to their success is their amazing adaptability. As amphibians, frogs have one webbed foot in each of two worlds. The advantages of this double life are clear to see: Are land predators giving you trouble? Dive into the water. Not enough to eat in the pond? Hop out and see what they're serving on shore. Frogs have evolved to live in an astounding variety of climates. They can be found just about anywhere there's fresh water, from the desert to the Arctic, on all continents except Antarctica. Though they thrive in warm, moist tropical climates, frogs also live in deserts and high on 15,000 foot mountain slopes. The Australian water-holding frog is a desert dweller that can wait up to seven years for rain. It burrows underground and surrounds itself in a transparent cocoon made of its own shed skin. Frozen Wood Frog Like all amphibians, frogs are cold-blooded, meaning that their body temperatures change with the temperature...
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...A couple of summers ago I was walking along the edge of the island to see what I could see in the water, and mainly to scare frogs. Frogs have an inelegant way of taking off from invisible positions on the bank just ahead of your feet, in dire panic, emitting a froggy “Yike!” and splashing into the water. Incredibly, this amused me, and, incredibly, it amuses me still. As I walked along the grassy edge of the island, I got better and better at seeing frogs both in and out of the water. I learned to recognize, slowing down, the difference in texture of the light reflected from mud bank, water, grass, or frog. Frogs were flying all around me. At the end of the island I noticed a small green frog. He was exactly half in and half out of the water, looking like a schematic diagram of an amphibian, and he didn’t jump. He didn’t jump; I crept closer. At last I knelt on the island’s winter killed grass, lost, dumbstruck, staring at the frog in the creek just four feet away. He was a very small frog with wide, dull eyes. And just as I looked at him, he slowly crumpled and began to sag. The spirit vanished from his eyes as if snuffed. His skin emptied and drooped; his very skull seemed to collapse and settle like a kicked tent. He was shrinking before my eyes like a deflating football. I watched the taut, glistening skin on his shoulders ruck, and rumple, and fall. Soon, part of his skin, formless as a pricked balloon, lay in floating folds like bright scum on top of the...
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...Frogs vs. Toads Frogs and toads are “small, tailless animal” that belongs to the amphibian class. (Forester 536 & Gibbons 303) Everyone thinks that frogs and toads are different from one another but in fact “there is no clear distinction between” them (Burnie & Wilson 440). Most people find it very difficult to differentiate between a frog and a toad that they often mix them up. Their physical features are very much alike but they are different on the basis of anatomy and habitat. When you see a creature hopping along the side of the creek, can you tell if it’s a frog or a toad? Frogs are very unique because “some frogs have colorful markings” (Forester 536). While as toads are marked in a “drab shades of brown, tan, gray, or black that serves as camouflage” (Campbell 217). Besides their markings, “almost all frogs have the same basic body structure” (Forester 536). Frogs have “long, powerful hind legs, which they use for jumping” (Forester 536). “Frogs can leap long distances, but also use their limbs to swim, burrow, and even to glide from tree to tree” (Wake 337). Unlike frogs, toads “generally have squat bodies and short legs” (Campbell 217). They do not “jump” like frogs so they “make short hops or even walk” (Campbell 217). As opposed to skin, frogs have “thin, moist skin” (Forester 536) and “the skin of most toads is dry, rough, and covered with warts” (Gibbons 303). There is an advantage to a toad’s dry skin. It’s “warty skin allows it to inhabit drier regions than...
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...Compare and Contrast Frogs and Toads Frogs vs. Toads When you see a creature hopping a farseeing the side of the creek, bathroom you tell if its a frog frog or a toad? Many people rear end non tell the difference amidst the two. They ar similar in many ways. When flavor at the two, there are some differences in them. For instance the frog and toad both have bulging eye; however, the frogs eyes are s illuminely bigger than the toads. As you read on you will learn the differences and similarities between the frog and toad. There are 2000 known species of the frog compared to the 300 kinds of toads. A frog is a small, slim, four legged amphibian with smooth skin and foresighted powerful hind legs with webbed feet. The biggest frog is the Giant frog, sometimes called Goliath Frog, in West Africa. This Giant frog laughingstock grow up to a foot in length. The frog is green or brown skinned with dark markings, pointed head, long hind legs, and can get one to four inches in length. Some frogs have suckers on their feet which help them cling to tree diagram trunks as they climb, known as tree frogs. The toad on the other hand has dry, warty skin with non as powerful hind legs. Toads are also lucubrate compared to the slim frog. The toad will puff up with conduct at times. Toads walk slow and have shorter legs than the frog. Toads are light brown skinned with brown markings; dry skin, flabby and can get up to three inches in length. The frog belongs to the family Ranidae...
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...Assignment (speech) Biodiversity refers to the variety of life on planet earth. However more often than not varying human impacts can effect different organisms in different ways. An organism that is severely affected due to human impacts is the Corroboree Frog which is an indigenous species of frog that inhabits now only a small region of Kosciuszko National Park, in New South Whales. This particular organism is currently the worlds most endangered frog species with the Lehmann’s poison frog coming a close second in which is an animal native to Columbia. The corroboree frog is broken into the northern and southern corroboree frogs, however due to the changing climate and new environmental pressures that humans have highly contributed to, now reside within 50 kilometres of one another. The Scientific names for the two frogs are Pseudophryne Corroboree (southern) and the Pseudophyrne Pengilleyeis (northern). These frogs inhabit numerous sections of the Kosciuszko National Park, However mainly occur in the Snowy Mountain regions and nearby state forests. This is between 950 and 1750 meters above sea level. It is usual for the frogs to reside in cavities In vegetation and soil that have dominant substrates. Corroboree frogs during breeding season live in pools within sphagnum bogs wet tussock grasslands and wet heaths. As a whole they generally prefer shallow pools with low water flow and large surface area. However around mid-summer these pools dry up, which puts the tadpoles...
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...The Frog Prince One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool spring of water with a rose in the middle of it, she sat herself down to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and catching it again as it fell. After a time she threw it up so high that she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled along on the ground, until at last it fell down into the spring. The princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so deep that she could not see the bottom of it. She began to cry, and said, 'Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the world.' Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, 'Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?' 'Alas!' said she, 'what can you do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.' The frog said, 'I do not want your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes; but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off your golden plate, and sleep on your bed, I will bring you your ball again.' 'What nonsense,' thought the princess, 'this silly frog is talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though he may be able to get my ball for me, and...
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...caricatures? Well, set in Angel’s Camp, a gold mining community of California during the mid -19th century, Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog by Mark Twain is a classical anecdote to chew on. The narrator, clearly an educated man from the East, presents the story of Jim Smiley, told in Simon Wheeler’s uneducated dialect. The author uses this dialect to present the contrast between East and West: educated verses the uneducated, or refined verses coarse. The narrator claims to have visited the camp populated primarily by men to find Simon Wheeler. Many of them looking for their fortune and probably seem to be full of loud, uncouth, and uneducated people compared to the more genteel East. Within this context, the author uses symbolism, imagery and allegory quite skilfully through his narrator using absurd characters to tell tale. Since tall tales traditionally have been more appreciated in the West, the setting is appropriate. Humorously, the names for the dog and the "educated" frog hint at some possible political undertones. The dog, who didn’t look like much but was feisty when it came to fighting, was named for Andrew Jackson, a westerner and the seventh president of the United States. He was a man of the people and believed in democracy for all. The moral of the tale could be that the uneducated, common frog was only able to beat the educated frog through cheating. Alternatively, given Webster’s politics, it might be possible read more deeply into this and suggest that the...
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...Where did all the frogs go? Imagine years into the future from now, the newly born kids won’t even know what a frog even is, how sad would that be? No more familiar ribbit in the middle of the night. Amphibians are still very important to humans, to the ecosystem, and to predators. If the amphibians become extinct, they will be nothing but a memory. Frogs control pests like flies, mosquitoes, and other insects that have the capability of carrying a disease. If a mosquito is carrying a disease and bites a human, they could get malaria, which can cause death. Frogs decrease the chance for humans to get deadly diseases like that. As amphibians decrease, problems may increase. Loosing fifty percent of the amphibians would put them almost extinct; they are already on the endangered list, which wouldn’t be good if we lost even more of the population. Conversationalists think that because amphibians are small, they are not as important to focus on, but they are wrong. Like mentioned above, amphibians control the insect population. The loss of the amphibians will also cause their predators to die as well. Amphibians have been teaching us many things; they have been alive for 350 million years, surviving dinosaurs, meteors, and also humans. That is a long period of evolutionary success. They adapt to wide range of environments like deserts, forests, and ponds. They still teach us things today, like new medicines and cures that are used from the chemicals within...
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...I chose red eyed tree frog because they are fascinating. They’ve been around for millions of years. They are masters of disguise. They start off as eggs, and then they become tadpoles. Tadpoles can hatch early. It takes a while for tadpoles to grow up. As adults, they have big red eyes, and long legs. The males are smaller than the females. During breeding season, males jump on a leaf to make it move, then a female goes to them, and they breed. Mating season generally last from fall to early spring. Red eyed tree frogs live five years in their habitat and live more years in captivity. The frogs have a striking green body with blue...
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...The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain From The Saturday Press, Nov. 18, 1865. Republished in The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches (1867), by Mark Twain and published by Harper & Brotherstest In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired after my friend's friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth; and that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating reminiscence of him as long and as tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it succeeded. I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the barroom stove of the dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel's, and I noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave me good-day. I told him a friend had commissioned me to make some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named Leonidas W. Smiley--Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel's Camp. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell...
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...Film Critique Walt Disney’s The Princess and the frog I am going to write about three issues that I noticed in the film “The Princess and the Frog” by Disney. The three topics I am going to talk about are classism, discrimination, and stereotypes in that respected order. This film brought up several issues, but those are the three I chose to focus on because these three were more predominate throughout the film. Set in New Orleans at the beginning of the 20th century, The Princess and the Frog concerns a poor African-American girl named Tiana who has a knack for cooking, and dreams of opening her own restaurant. Her best friend since childhood is a privileged white girl whose wealthy father employs Tiana's mother as a dressmaker. When the friend's family hosts a party for Prince Naveen of Maldonia, Dr. Facilier,a.k.a the Shadow Man, an expert in black magic, turns the visiting royal into a frog. The now amphibious Naveen convinces Tiana that a kiss will reverse the spell, and if she obliges him he'll provide the money she needs to open her dream restaurant. However, their smooch not only fails to turn him back into a human, but transforms Tiana into a frog as well. The duo then sets out to find a voodoo priestess who can set everything right.“www.fandango.com “ Let’s start with classism, which a biased or discriminatory attitude based on distinctions is made between social or economic classes or the viewing of society as being composed of distinct classes. This...
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...Bizarre extinct frog brought back to life March 16, 2013, 10:55 am By environment reporter Sarah Clarke ABC Imagine a frog that can swallow its eggs, brood its young in its stomach and give birth through its mouth. The gastric brooding frog existed 30 years ago, but the extraordinary amphibian is now extinct. In a world first, a team of Australian scientists has taken the first major step in bringing it back to life. They have successfully reactivated its DNA and produced an embryo. Professor Mike Archer from the University of New South Wales is part of the team, which also includes researchers from the University of Newcastle. He says the amphibian was no ordinary frog. "In the stomach these eggs went on to develop into tadpoles and the tadpoles then went on to develop into little frogs," he told ABC radio's AM program. "And like any pregnant mum, when you have little babies rattling away in your stomach saying, 'let me out', she would then open her mouth and out would pop little frogs. "The first people that saw that were aghast. By the time anybody got excited about it, suddenly it was extinct. "So that's certainly one of the driving reasons why this would be a focal animal for seeing if we can de-extinct this amazing frog." That is exactly what a team of Australian scientists is doing. After locating a few carcases stored in a deep freezer, they have been able to recover tissue from the gastric brooding frog. Using a laboratory technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer...
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...A Joker’s Mind In “Hop-Frog”, a short story about two friend’s revenge on a tyrannical king, Edgar Allan Poe applies the romantic features of imagination and individualism in his writing as he portrays the mind and personality of a dwarf working for the King. The main character, Hop-Frog, is a dwarf who is a joker for the King. When Poe describes him in the story, he uses the phrases, “[s]omething between a leap and a wriggle” and “a movement that afforded illimitable amusement” (159) to describe how he walks and a way he provides entertainment to the King. Here, Poe demonstrates imagination by telling his audience made up characteristics about his character to develop the character and give a glimpse into what the rest of the story will be...
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...made an unusual discovery of a new species of frogs. The strange looking new amphibian is known to be a sole surviving member of amphibians that evolved more than 130 million years ago. Scientist calls this species discovery as a ‘once in a century find’ because of it’s belonging to an ancient group of amphibians that once shared the same land with dinosaurs. Formally discovered in 2003, the poignous frog, also known as the “Purple Frog”, has been the talk of all scientist discoveries because of its comic features and behaviors. Although this new species has recently been discovered with highly distinctive and comical appearances, its behaviors adaptive values benefit the amphibian by increasing its total fitness. However scientists might now be able to research this rare species because it is slowly decreasing in population. The purple frog has a sidesplitting appearance with a distinctive habitat in an unusual range of geographical location. This new species of frog can be described as a typical frog at first glance but as you pay closer attention you notice its distinctive appearances compared to other species of frogs. The body has a similar shape like most frogs yet it has a plump bloated body shape with short fore and hind limbs that end in webbed feet with rounded toes. Each hind foot has a large, white wart look-a-like growth that is most likely used for digging in their moist soil locations. The small head shape of the frog seems almost too small for such a short body...
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