Frogs and toads have a large variety in their diet. They have been
known to eat worms, earwigs, beetles, flies, butterflies, woodlice,
spiders, ants, snails, slugs and worms. Their food must be alive and
moving.
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They catch their prey by shooting out a long sticky tongue and
then retracting it into their mouths.
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Tadpole
predators include leeches, waterboatmen, water spiders, fish, wading
birds and even frogs.
Adult frog and toad predators are snakes, raccoons, skunks, turtles
and owls as well as larger fish and several shore and wading birds
and even people.;
Defense mechanisms include jumping, slippery skin (making it difficult
to hold onto) and camouflage. Some even play dead! Toads puff up to
look bigger and toads possess poison.
Tadpoles become frogs or toads within two months. One exception
is the bullfrog; it takes an entire year!
Scientific experiments using frogs' legs in Italy in the early
1800s led Alessandro Volta to the understanding that copper and zinc
combined generated electricity, and we have refined this information
today to create the battery.
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A bullfrog jumps over twenty times its body length.
In its life a frog may use 3-4 different types of breathing. When
it is a young tadpole it uses internal gills. It then changes to the
use of external gills and finally to lung breathing when it must have
access to land. In addition it can process oxygen through its skin.
Frogs do not drink; rather they take in water through their skin.
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Frogs hibernate.
