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.
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In one of the strangest birth methods in the animal kingdom, babies erupt from a cluster of tiny holes in their mother’s back.
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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.
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Surinam toads are also called stargazers because their tiny, lidless eyes sit on top of their heads.
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Hunting and dietAs fully aquatic species, Surinam toads live in slow-moving water source
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such as rainforestpools and moist leaf litter throughout eastern Trinidad and Tobago and much of the Amazon Basin, including its namesake country, Surinam.
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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.
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To sense prey, the nocturnal creatures use the sensory organs at their fingertips.
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They’ll then suck the animal into their teethless, tongueless mouths, or scoop them up with their hands.
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Mating and reproductionMales call to females by snapping a bone in their throat, the hyoid, which makes a sound underwater.
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When he finds a receptivefemale, he grasps her around the back with his arms, a position called amplexus.
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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
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