The world's largest frog is also one of the most coveted animal proteins in the African "bush meat" trade.
Giant frog
The Conraua goliath, named after the Philipstin giant Goliath in biblical stories, is also known as the giant bullfrog. They are the largest and heaviest of any surviving frog species.
Big long legs
The giant frog has completely webbed toes, and the huge finger septum extends down to the tip of the toe, with the second toe being the longest. The back is green in color and the ventral part of the abdomen and limbs is yellow/orange.
One is enough to eat
They are ridiculously large, with giant frogs reaching up to 35 centimeters in length from their nose to their butts (up to more than 70 centimeters if they straighten their long legs) and weighing up to 4 kilograms.
This species lives only in relatively small habitats in Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea.
Frogs that do not bark, special breeding behaviors create a large size
"The bright moon is not a surprise, and the breeze is singing cicadas in the middle of the night." Rice blossoms say good year, listen to the sound of frogs. ”
If cameroon had poets, they would not have written such a good sentence. Because giant frogs don't have vocal sacs, they don't make the "croak, grunt" call of frog species to mate during the breeding season.
Rice blossoms say good year
In contrast, giant frogs have unusual breeding behavior.
During the mating season, the male frogs will dig a diversion pond about 1 meter wide and 10 cm deep by themselves, and then surround it with large semi-circular rocks to build a small pond as an ovary.
In the process they need to move quite a large amount of stone. This partly explains the huge size of the giant frog - the larger the "muscle man", the better at moving heavy objects when building the nest, and the better the nest, the more likely to take down the female frog.
The giant frog dug his own small pond
After the small pond is built, the male frog, like a sumo wrestler, stays in it, waiting for the female to take it down when she comes to see the house.
Of course, there are also some chicken thieves who try to get something for nothing. At this time, larger and stronger frogs have a better chance of passing on their genes.
Big frogs, small tadpoles
The world's largest frogs are of course carnivores, but when these giant frogs were tadpoles, they were super picky eaters, eating only one aquatic weed that is native to the local waters.
Giant frogs have very small tadpoles
Interestingly, despite their very large adult size, giant frog eggs and tadpoles are almost indistinguishable from most frogs and are very small.
If you've seen super-large tadpoles like the one shown below in other articles on the Internet, they're swamp frogs in Arizona, USA, and have nothing to do with giant frogs. A cursory glance at the Internet, most of the self-media that like to copy and paste are mistaken.
Zhang Guan
Lee Dai
After 90 days of vegetarian food in the water, the giant frog will turn into a small frog about 1.4 cm long. Since then, they have stopped being vegetarian and began to grow larger little by little until they became Big Macs.
Originally it was a small frog of 1.4 cm
The diet of the adult giant frog after opening the meat is quite extensive, basically any animal that moves and is smaller than them: spiders, worms and insects, they also eat fish, other amphibians (salamanders, frogs), molluscs, crabs, small turtles, juvenile snakes and small mammals (mice, etc.).
belch
They can live up to 15 years in the wild. In zoos, the lifespan of the giant frog is recorded at 21 years.
Delicious on earth
Giant frogs eat all animals smaller than them, and likewise, almost all predators larger than them see it as a good meal. Snakes, water birds, crocodiles, other predators, the main natural enemy of which is humans.
Gee
In Cameroon's capital, Yaoundé alone, an estimated 2.3 tons of jungle meat are sold every day, most of which is illegally harvested, and giant frogs are prized in it.
The restaurateur's son carried a 2 kg one
Although the giant frog is legally a protected species in Cameroon, almost no one cares, whether it is the government or the locals.
Cameroonian (stealing) hunters use shotguns and traps to catch giant frogs on a large scale. Hunters agree that they need to go farther and farther to find the frog, and the average size of the frog is decreasing.
Officer, do you want braised or spicy stir-fry?
According to the latest estimates, the total population of the giant frog has declined by at least 50% over the past 15 years, and the species is now listed as endangered.
Some naturalists have launched several captive breeding projects between 2015 and 2020 to protect giant frogs, organizing locals to collect frog eggs and rear them.
Unfortunately, as of today, this species has not been bred in captivity.
The researchers simulated the wild environment, but the male frog's mood has not been high, and there is no intention of building a small pond by himself; Give them a simulation of a small pond, and the male and female giant frogs will turn a blind eye to each other, and they will not have any "sexual" interest in each other.
I don't know how to put "cat pieces" for pandas, is it useful to deal with giant frogs [spitting out tongues]?
The author thanks you for your attention (¬_¬)