Page 32 - Amphibian
P. 32
Large tubercle
used for All fingers and toes
digging
An amphibian’s legs, hands, and feet can
give valuable clues to its habits and life-
style. A closer look at the front and back
legs can reveal how an amphibian moves
– whether by hopping, leaping, walking,
run-ning, crawling, digging, climbing, or even “flying”
(pp. 50–51). Hands and feet also show where amphi-
Asian bians live: tree frogs have disks on their fingers and
painted toes; “flying” frogs have disks on their fully webbed
frog
fingers and toes; aquatic frogs and toads, as well as
CLIMBING HAND, tree-dwelling salamanders, have very broad, fully
BURROWING FOOT
This unusual side view of webbed feet; and burrowing frogs have short fingers
an Asian painted frog on their hands and tubercles (projections of
shows that it is well
adapted to life on the thickened skin) on their feet.
forest floor. It has large
hands with long fingers
and disks on the tips for
climbing and two enlarged
tubercles on each foot for African
burrowing (pp. 54–55). clawed
toad
“Extra”
bone in
each finger
and toe
Claw for
gripping
Paradoxical
frog
Sticky disk
for gripping AN UNDERWATER LIFE
onto leaves The African clawed
toad’s narrow hands
White’s and long fingers are
tree frog used to push food
into the mouth. The
MIXED-UP FROG clawed toes grip
The South American well on slimy
paradoxical frog has a A GOOD CLIMBER surfaces; and the
In most tree frogs
strange life history. Not (pp. 50–53), such webbed feet make
only does the tadpole as this White’s swimming easy in
grow larger than the tree frog from tropical African lakes.
adult frog, but the Australia, both
adult’s fingers and toes the hands and
each have an extra bone, feet are adapted to climbing.
making the feet and Their big hands and feet spread Web for
hands very long. wide, so they can grip on to swimming
larger areas of leaves, twigs,
and branches, and the sticky
pads on their fingers and toes
help them hold on.
Disk forming
an almost
perfect circle
A GREAT BURROWER
The short, stubby toes
and fingers, and
large, spadelike
tubercles on the
African bullfrog’s feet
are adaptations to a
burrowing life (pp. 54–55).
Each year it spends up to
African bullfrog ten months underground.
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