So I just stumbled over this picture of two frogs/toads of a surprisingly rotund form. Are these the mature, normal forms of some frog species? Or are they juvenile, or maybe aberrant forms? Or just photoshop?
I’ve found a video, too. It… makes noises!
So it appears it’s called a desert rain frog, does actually look like that, and actually makes those sounds. How can any of those ‘intelligent design’-folks look at things like that and not go, ‘yeah, no, that doesn’t make any fucking sense whatsoever’. (“On the underside it has a transparent area of skin through which its internal organs can be seen.”; I mean, why?)
Anyway, you can ignore this thread, I guess.
No! I won’t ignore it! Nature is too cool to ignore. Thanks for adding a little slice.
I am not necessarily a proponent of intelligent design (although I’m not necessarily NOT a proponent) but just because you don’t understand/can’t see the purpose or utility of a particular design (biological or otherwise) doesn’t mean that a perfectly good purpose doesn’t exist.
I might not have been perfectly serious in that comment.
I’m intrigued, why on earth would you* not* take the opportunity to clarify you are* not * a proponent of intelligent design. Why make that curious statement?
My god, it sounds like a balloon throwing a hissy fit.
Just guessing here, but that area of skin may be especially thin in order to permit easier absorption of rainwater from the soil surface. Frogs can take up water through the skin, and in fact this is how they “drink.” The transparency may not be adaptive, just a consequence of the thinness (and the fact that since the underside is shielded from sunlight it’s unnecessary for the skin there to be pigmented.)
It looks like a balloon throwing a hissy fit.
What a cool little creature!
The wiki article says they’re endangered. Not fair. 
I like some elements of the Intelligent Design theory (primarily that there may in fact be a higher power that guides the universe according to rules established by said power), but it seems more often than not that people associated with that viewpoint are anti-science, religious zealots. I don’t identify with that side of it.
Ah, that argument. Well nothing more need be said. In fact nothing more can be said and I suspect that is the attraction of holding that viewpoint.
And something interesting came from this thread after all! Thank you.
Features of animals that at first glance may appear to have no function often may not be adaptive in and of themselves - in this case the transparency of the skin - but be a consequence of adaptation for some other function - the skin is transparent because it needs to be thin to adsorb water.
There are severalBreviceps species similar to B. macrops. Some species are actually common as frogs go - in the sense that you’ll hear them if you’re in the woods during rain, or even in gardens. But they live mostly underground and are dreadfully hard to ever see, let alone capture. I’ve seen maybe 10 in my 25 years of casual frogging. But all are vulnerable to habitat destruction and the general decline all amphibians are facing worldwide.
The weird squeaking noise is a threat response and not their usual call. All Breviceps make a croaking mating call - some sound like a stick rattling on corrugated surface. Attenborough (of course) did nice coverageof a related species, Breviceps adspersus.
In Afrikaans they are called blaasops (“blow ups”) because their threatened posture is to inflate their whole body like a blowfish. And then go stumping along on their tiny legs. So cute.
Ah, so the blown up form is also not their natural ‘look’? (And this seems to be a threat response along the ‘if you can’t scare your predators, baffle them’-line…)
When they’re not blown up they don’t look quite so ridiculous (but are still pretty funny-looking).
Many toads inflate their bodies to make themselves harder to swallow. This is particularly effective with snakes, which have to swallow their prey whole. There is a snake here in Panama that specializes on toads that has special enlarged fangs in the rear of the mouth to “pop” the toad so it can be swallowed. I don’t know if there are snakes with similar adaptations in Africa.
Their normal look is still pretty rotund (Breviceps means “short-headed”) much more so than other frogs.
They always look particularly grumpy to me - like a “Harumph!” given flesh.