WHAT is a frog, what is the difference between it and a toad? This is a question which one may ask when standing before one of these two amphibians.
The term toads tends to refer to a true toad which belongs to a family containing more than 300 members.
A toad can be identified through a stubby body with short hind legs for walking instead of hopping. A toad is covered by warty and dry skin a feature which enables it to prefer dry climate.
When we think of a frog we generally picture what is called a true frog, this is an amphibian which comes from a family with more than 400 members.
A frog can be distinguished by two bulging eyes, strong, long, webbed hind feet that are adapted for leaping and swimming.
A frog can also be identified through its smooth or slimy skin a feature which forces them to prefer moist environments.
Frogs have glands which secrete mucus and a range of toxins that make frogs slippery to hold and distasteful or poisonous.
The frog is a very small animal that humans do not value or fear, but elephant despite their size fear and respect them although in most cases they are not aggressive.
When going to drink water in a pond, river or anywhere they almost don’t care about anything but when they hear the sound of frogs or frogs singing immediately they will stop.
This mysterious fear grab elephants because of what may happen to them if they are not careful, as the mammal tries to quench its thirst, a small frog may get trapped into an elephant trunk and cause problem.
From the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro to the banks of Wami, frogs are one of the most forgotten animals because many people do not see the point in treating them well.
This happens because people consider them to be very poor creatures with no importance like animals in the animal kingdom.
On the other side, from today you need to know that despite being forgotten and unappreciated by humans the frog is highly feared by an elephant.
To get what happened between the two I had to do research from an elderly man living in Madibira village in Mahenga District.
The man explains that when an elephant drinks water that has a frog, the amphibian goes straight to the animal’s stomach.
Since the elephant has a big belly, it makes the frog to feel like it is in a pond so it starts singing as usual.
In doing so, the elephant feels bad and begins to find a way to get the frog out of its stomach, to get the frog out, it will start smashing itself on trees, logs, and sometime throw itself on the ground.
That is done so that the frog will not continue to disturb the animal from the stomach, as a result, the elephant injures itself and may die.
The old man says this is the main reason why elephants are so afraid of frogs and respect him so much for the noise in his stomach.
On their side, scientists say frogs can hear both in the air and below water, the call or croak of a frog is unique to its species.
Frogs create this sound by passing air through the larynx in the throat. In most calling frogs, the sound is amplified by one or more vocal sacs.
These are unique types of membranes of skin under the throat or on the corner of the mouth, which swell during the amplification of the call.
Scientists say some frog calls are so loud that they can be heard up to a mile or 1.6 kilometers away.
Additionally, some species have been found to use man-made structures such as drain pipes for artificial amplification of their calls.
On their side, elephant ears are very big and have thick bases within a larger ear surfaces containing more capillaries which enable them to hear at low frequencies.
Elephants use their trunks to draw water from any source before emptying more than 8.5 liters into its mouth, with this ability it is very easy to include a frog while applying sucking pressure on the surface of a stream or well.
Meanwhile scientists say a trunk is a long, prehensile tube with two nostrils running down the centre and a mass of flesh, muscle, fat, blood nerves and connective tissue.
Weighing about 140 kilogrammes, a trunk acts as a nose, an arm, a hand, a voice source, a straw, a hose, weapon, a fifth leg and much more for an Elephant.
To get a clear knowledge about the trunk please take note that, equipped with the smartest brain on the Earth the entire human body only has 639 muscles.
Scientists say the key to the trunk’s usage is an extraordinary network of 40,000 muscles which are divided into four main groups of external and internal.
These are the external muscles, covering the top and side of the trunk while another pair running along muscles at the bottom and a pair that sits on either side of the trunk’s base.
Scientists say all these muscles help the animal to control the trunks big movements which are ups, downs and side to side.
The internal muscles are found in a highly complex network known as fascicles of which an entire trunk can contain up to 150,000 fascicles.
This is a system which enables them to communicate because the fascicles are arranged along the entire length of the trunk like spokes on a bicycle wheel.
By working together with the external muscles, they give the trunk the extraordinary flexibility above any other organ of any animal in the wild.
At the opening of the African elephant’s trunk there are two fingerlike growths while the Asian has only one which they use to grasp an object within its fingers.
These fingers, also known as proboscides or proboscis in singular enable the elephants to grasp food and other small objects.
Scientists say smelling is another important function of an elephant’s trunk, this unique feature enables them to have the largest nose in the world.
The size of the trunk enables an elephant to have one highest level of smelling capacity over and above many other animals in the savannah.
Elephants move the tip of their trunk constantly from one direction to another to taste different strange smells in the air.
The same thing would be done by two eyes of a man in a strange situation while walking along the street of Nyamanoro in Mwanza.
Elephants also commonly smell each other and each other’s body secretions to obtain valuable chemical knowledge about their companions.
When something more than smell is required, elephants use the trunk tip as a chemical receptor allowing them to obtain information about other elephants.
They gather chemical information by touching the trunk tip against a substance, commonly urine or temporal glad secretions.
The elephant uses the trunk to draw water and then sprays it into the mouth, a typical trunk can hold around four liters of water but some studies have indicated that the trunk of a full grown bull has a capacity of holding up to 10 liters at once.
Elephants use the trunk as a shower with various pressure settings because it can either send a powerful blast jet of water or a gentler shower.
When elephants are very hot and water is not available sometime they will put their trunks in their mouths to obtain a large amount of saliva and spray them on their gigantic bodies.
On his side, the old man from Madibira village in Mahenga District says when elephants hear frogs calling or croaking they take all kinds of precaution.
Different studies show before lowering their trunk into the source of water, any careless individual who ignores the frogs because of their size will pay back with his or her life.
Scientists say the sound which frogs produce is known as a call or croak and it is unique to its species. Frogs create this sound by passing air through the larynx in the throat.
In most calling frogs, the sound is amplified by one or more vocal sacs, membranes of skin under the throat or on the corner of the mouth that distend during the amplification of the call.
Species of frog that lack vocal sacs and that do not have a loud call tend to inhabit areas close to constantly noisy, flowing water because they need to use an alternative means to communicate.
The main function of calling is for male frogs to attract mates. Males may call individually or there may be a chorus of sound where numerous males have converged on breeding sites.
In many frog species, females reply to males’ calls, which acts to reinforce reproductive activity in a breeding colony.
Female frogs prefer males that produce sounds of greater intensity and lower frequency, attributes that stand out in a crowd.
The rationale for this is thought to be that by demonstrating his power, the male shows his fitness to produce superior offspring.
A different call is emitted by a male frog or unreceptive female when mounted by another male.
This is a distinct chirruping sound and is accompanied by a vibration of the body. Many species also have a territorial call that is used to drive away other males.
Different scientific researches indicate all of these calls are emitted with the mouth of the frog closed.
While a distress call is emitted by some frogs when they are in danger, is produced with the mouth open resulting in a higher-pitched call.
This is typically used when the frog has been grabbed by a predator and may serve to distract or disorient the attacker so that it releases the frog.
Many species of frog have deep calls but males are notable for their varieties of calls where upward and downward frequency modulations take place.
Different scientific researches indicate when frogs communicate, they produce calls that fall in the ultrasound frequency range.
The last aspect that makes this species of frog’s calls unusual is that nonlinear acoustic phenomena are important components in their acoustic signals.
Naturally, frogs have four legs. The two front legs are long and the back legs are short, which helps them to jump, walk and swim while in the water.
Toad toes are attached to soft skin to enable them to swim in the water. However, frogs can walk and some of them are able to fly on land.
To some extent the frog’s eyes look like a chameleon and have the ability to look back and forth and back and forth and they can roll their eyes look without turning their heads.
This is possible because the eyes of most frogs are located on either side of the head near the top and project outwards as hemispherical bulges.
This is a special mechanism which provides a binocular vision over a field of 100° to the front and a total visual field of almost 360°.
Scientists say the distant vision of a frog is better than its near vision.
Calling frogs will quickly become silent when they see an intruder or even a moving shadow but the closer an object is, the less well it is seen.
When a frog shoots out its tongue to catch an insect it is reacting to a small moving object that it cannot see well and must line it up precisely beforehand because it shuts its eyes as the tongue is extended.
Although it was formerly debated, more recent research has shown that frogs can see in colour, even in very low light.
Frogs are generally recognised as exceptional jumpers and, relative to their size, the best jumpers of all vertebrates.
Different researches indicate that there are tremendous differences between species in jumping capability.
Within a species, jump distance increases with increasing size, but relative jumping distance in body-lengths jumped for decreases.
Scientists say during the time when jumping is at the peak power exerted during a jump can exceed that which the muscle is theoretically capable of producing.
When the muscles contract, the energy is first transferred into the stretched tendon which is wrapped around the ankle bone.
Then the muscles stretch again at the same time as the tendon releases more energy to produce a powerful acceleration beyond the limits.