From: itannman@catbert.ucdavis.edu (Ann Mansker)
Subject: Critter of the Week: Pipa pipa
Date: 24 Aug 1998 00:00:00 GMT
Newsgroups: ucd.life

The Surinam Toad is a smooth-skinned fully aquatic amphibian native to
eastern South America.  Unlike most frogs and toads, the Surinam Toad has a
very flattened body, with a triangular head and tiny lidless eyes.  Its
front feet are unwebbed, and the fingers are tipped with petal-like 
extensions.  Frogs and toads typically use their tongues to help capture
prey, but the Surinam Toad has no tongue.  Instead, it feels around in the
bottom of ponds with its sensitive fingers to find and consume any small
creature it can fit in its mouth. 

This toad has an unusual method for protecting its young.  The mating
process involves elaborate looping maneuvers that end with up to 100
fertilized eggs glued to the female's back, which has become soft and
spongy.  Within a few hours, the eggs sink in and skin grows over them,
hardening into a tough lid over each individual egg pocket.  The young
develop fully in the egg, emerging 12 to 20 weeks later as miniatures of
their parents.

A 19th-century engraving of the Surinam Toad is pictured on the cover of the
O'Reilly & Associates publication "Windows Annoyances."  The Discovery
Channel website has a couple of images at:
http://www.discovery.com/stories/nature/animalfamilies/zooms/toad.html