African Painted Frog

1. African Painted Frog By: Kenzie

2. The body; • The shorter the body of the frog, the more simple its patterns on its back become. The older , the more complex designs are created. • There skin has the ability to change colors. • Adults are a maximum of 3 inches long. If they are under 12mm long, they have simplistic patterns and colors. • The frog is grown into one pattern on their backs, it doesn’t change although the colors can go from extremely dramatic, to simple and plain. • They have flatten discs on the bottom of each toe. The helps them walk on slippery substances and leaves. • There bellies are usually pink or white. • They have no defined neck line, between their heads and body. • All there feet are webbed with the stickiness on the bottom of each toe. • Only male have vocal sacks, women frogs have a side-to-side fold across the throat. This can grow up to 3 centimeters in one frogs lifetime. • They all have slender, tiny bodies, that are very unnoticeable if your not looking. • They are about an inch long, a mature frog at least.

3. Communication; Since almost all living organisms need to be able to communicate, believe it or not, the African painted frogs can speak with other frogs. When it calls, or speaks, it’s a very high pitched whistle sound, that they repeat. Until the message is understood. They have a vocal sack, or they wouldn’t make sound productively. When they call out to another frog, the vocal sack bulges out. As shown to your right.

4. Reproduction; ♥Even if they are endangered , they still reproduce. They are endangered because they are preyed upon by birds. This species lays eggs to create more frogs. They lay anywhere from 300 to 400 eggs at a time. This way , they have some chance of getting babies. The eggs are placed on wet leaves, roots, or stems. They are shaped like flat cakes. Once the eggs hatch, the frogs go through metamorphosis. This can take anywhere from six to eight weeks until they are completely capable of dealing with the world.

5. Climate and Habitat; Food; • African painted frogs enjoy living in high altitude forests, surrounded by bamboo. • If there is no bamboo, they hide inside moist bark and moss covering tree trunks. • They were last seen in the highlands of Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. • The climate is said that it is comfortable for them with perfect weather conditions, and 68 degrees to 78 degrees is perfect for them. • African painted frogs eat the following. • Arthropods • Bamboo & Reed plants. • Grass • Bugs • & other small insects easily preyed upon.

6. Ways they get sick: • There are many ways from people and animals to get sick, here are the ways an African painted frog can: • Water cleanliness • Not enough quarantine • Mechanical Wonds • Over population • Not enough room for living comfortably. • Nutritional Deficiency • Eating insects with nasty diseases, or can clog up there digestive systems. • Not getting enough minerals or vitamins

7. Questions & Answers; 1:How will not having this organism affect the environment? 2:How does having this organism affect the environment? 3:What is being done to protect this organism? 4:What needs to be done to increase the numbers of this organism in the environment? 5:How did this organism become endangered or extinct? • 1: Not having the African painted frog, will create less amount of food for larger frogs, which in turn will result in less food for big birds, and other large organisms that prey on frogs. • 2: Having an African painted frog helps the environment because it keeps all the little insects that bother bigger animals, will be dead, which will create a more nutritious meal as it goes up the line. • 3: No actions have been taken to try and preserve this animal, it was too late when we began noticing the scarce number of painted frogs. • 4: In order to recreate these frogs, we would have to make them with crossbreeds but it is far to late to create a full bread again. • 5: This animal became extinct on its own, just under populated numbers of frogs, so they got killed on a daily basis which made their population numbers drop dramatically.

8. More important information; • Reports are , they haven’t been seen since the 1950’s. • There is a very small chance that there are any left living, they are most likely extinct. • They are colored very brightly to try and fool there predators that they may be poisonous, since they are so bright. • They are commonly known as “reed frogs.” • Generally, animals that are easily pried upon , hide during the day, and sneak out at night. The African painted frogs just come out in the open in the day if that’s what they please to do. • The African painted frog, has no eardrums. They sense what the other frogs are saying strictly on vibrations. • They are preyed upon by larger frogs, which are then killed by reptiles, herons, egrets, or storks. • The reason they are out in the open in the daytime is because they rest in the sun on top of Reed plants. • There are over 150 different species of the African painted frogs. • There are countless combinations of they painted look on their backs.

9. Visited Sites; • http://www.travelafricamag.com/content/view/2218/131/ • http://www.conservation.org/learn/biodiversity/species/profiles/amphibians/Pages/Callixalus_pictus.aspx • http://animals.jrank.org/pages/215/African-Treefrogs-Hyperoliidae-PAINTED-REED-FROG-Hyperolius-viridiflavus-SPECIES-ACCOUNTS.html • http://www.africam.com/wildlife/painted_reed_frogs • http://www.amphibiancare.com/frogs/caresheets/reedfrog.html