| SURINAM TOAD |
| Pipa pipa |
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Range:
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Amazon region in South America, Peru, Guyana, Surinam, Brazil. |
The Surinam Toad is one of the stranger animals going. It lies very still on the bottom of a slow-moving stream for long periods of time, with its flattened body outspread, where it could easily be mistaken for being dead. This is how the toad “hunts,” waiting patiently for food to swim in front of it. Then it either shovels its victim in with its fingers, or opens its large mouth to suck it in.
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| Habitat: |
Neotropics, in oxygen-deficient, muddy, turbid, even polluted water. Live on the bottom and surface for air. |
| Diet: |
Using star-shaped tactile organs on its fingertips to detect food, they lunge at their prey, consisting mostly of invertebrates, but also worms and crustaceans. |
| Status: |
They are common, and not threatened. |
| Approximate Dimensions of Adult: |
Weight: Between 100 – 160 g.
Length: About 20 cm (8 inches) long. |
| Lifespan: |
Up to 15 years. |
| Reproduction & Offspring: |
They mate in the water, and as the eggs are released the male fertilizes them and presses them to the back of the female. In the next several hours, the skin grows around the eggs to enclose them in a cyst with a horny lid. After about 80 days, the eggs develop, and the young emerge out of the back of this toad as tiny froglets. |
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