With its flat, flounder-like appearance, triangle-shaped head, and tiny eyes, the Surinam toad doesn’t look like most other toads. It also doesn’t give birth like one.
In one of the strangest birth methods in the animal kingdom, babies erupt from a cluster of tiny holes in their mother’s back.
The odd characteristics don’t stop there. These amphibians have long fingers that end in four star-shaped sensory lobes that inspired their other common name, the star-shaped toad.
Surinam toads are also called stargazers because their tiny, lidless eyes sit on top of their heads.
Hunting and dietAs fully aquatic species, Surinam toads live in slow-moving water source
such as rainforestpools and moist leaf litter throughout eastern Trinidad and Tobago and much of the Amazon Basin, including its namesake country, Surinam.
Blending into their environment with brownish or olive skin and a death-like stillness, the toads both stay safe from predators and catch crustaceans, fish, and invertebrates in the water.
To sense prey, the nocturnal creatures use the sensory organs at their fingertips.
They’ll then suck the animal into their teethless, tongueless mouths, or scoop them up with their hands.
Mating and reproductionMales call to females by snapping a bone in their throat, the hyoid, which makes a sound underwater.
When he finds a receptivefemale, he grasps her around the back with his arms, a position called amplexus.
Interlocked, the pair will somersault through the water for hours until the female releases about a hundred eggs.
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Though such back-breaking labor may seem odd, it’s actually safer for the newborns.
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Ref: kidadl, wikipedia, nationalgeographic, animals.sandiegozoo, honoluluzoo,Pic: wikipedia, animals.sandiegozoo, pinterest, American Museum of Natural History, fishingthai, talitabateman, honoluluzoo, catapult, Natural History Museum, biolib, clipart-history, warrenphotographic, theonlinezoo
