They are quite small frogs, measuring from 1 inch to 2.5 inches (2.5cm – 7cm). The insides of their legs and undersides are orange. Their characteristic big, red, forward-facing eyes dominate their heads. Red eyed tree frogs have bright, leaf-green bodies, with yellow and blue stripes running down their sides. However, not all Hylids (members of the Hylidae family) actually live in trees. True to their name, Red eyed tree frogs are ‘arboreal’, which means that much of their lives is spent in trees. This family is known as the ‘tree frogs’. Red eyed tree frogs are in the Hylidae family of frogs. Red eyed tree frogs hatch from eggs as tadpoles, before metamorphosing (changing) into the adult frog form. Like all frogs, Red eyed tree frogs are amphibians. The scientific name for a red eyed tree frog is Agalychnis callidryas. The name was inspired by the frog’s good looks: it means ‘beautiful tree nymph’. Ĭlick to see more animals in the Active Wild Online Zooĭiscover some amazing red eyed tree frog facts below. One survival trick in particular is amazing! Read on to find out more about this, and other awesome red eyed tree frog facts. Like many creatures, there is more to the Red eyed tree frog than meets the eye. “Frogs are amazing in their adaptations, and this frog is evidence of this,” says Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum and National Geographic Explorer who was not involved in the new study.Red eyed tree frogs seem to be everywhere: from computer screen savers to advertisements – these little frogs have hit the big time! Their green colouring and big red eyes are no accidents the red eyed tree frog has evolved to fit a particular niche in the rainforest ecosystem. After the larval phase, Bhupathy’s purple frogs bid adieu to the outside world and set about their lives of subterranean secrecy. “This is the longest the species appears above ground during its entire lifetime,” says Vasudevan. The cliff-hanging tadpoles spend about 120 days in the torrent, says Karthikeyan Vasudevan, coauthor, biologist, and colleague of Aggarwal’s at CCMB. The tadpoles use these bizarre orifices to cling to the rocks behind waterfalls created by the heavy rains, where they graze on algae with tiny teeth. After a day or two, the eggs hatch into tadpoles.īut unlike the tadpoles of many frog species, which spend their days swimming around puddles and ponds, Bhupathy’s purple frog tadpoles develop mouths more like that of a suckerfish. Males then mate with females in the streams, where they deposit the fertilized eggs. When the monsoon season begins, the male frogs start making loud calls from beneath the sand in mountain streams, says Ramesh Aggarwal, senior author of the new study and a molecular geneticist at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad, India. There is one thing that can coax the purple frogs from their underground burrows-rain. “This frog lineage is very ancient, and has a very low diversity, so this finding is very special and unusual,” says Prendini. The find comes as part of an effort sponsored by the Indian government to sample the DNA of every frog and toad species in the nation. Together, the two make up the only known members of their family. sahyadrensis) found in the region in 2003. īhupathy’s purple frog is closely related to another purple frog ( N. Instead, the Indian purple frogs use a long, fluted tongue to slurp up ants and termites underground, says Elizabeth Prendini, a herpetologist at the American Museum of Natural History and coauthor of a paper describing the species in the newest issue of the journal Alytes. In fact, the amphibians don’t even surface to eat.

Peculiar traits of purple tree frog