It will probably come as no surprise to my regular readers that animals have my main interest. Madagascar has a wealth of nifty indigenous creatures to satisfy even the most well-travelled animal lover. Let’s start with some of the cold-blooded ones that I really like: frogs.
There are more than 500 frog species in Madagascar, almost 10% of which are endemic to the island. 200 of the frog species remain to be described, so there is still a lot of interesting work for scientists for years to come.
This little one belongs to a genera of tree frogs called bright-eyed frogs. One look at them and you can see why.
This is one pointy-nosed dude! If it does not yet have a name, I will call it the Janne-nosed frog. But I think it might be the Madagascar bright-eyed frog.
Another frog with a pretty obvious name is this plump, red one, aptly called the tomato frog. When frightened, it puffs itself up. If that doesn’t work against a predator, and the predator grabs it in its mouth, the tomato frog secretes a thick substance from its skin that causes the predator’s eyes and mouth to go numb and voilá – the predator lets go of the frog.
I think this might be a western bright-eyed frog.
One giant leap can bring this tiny, unidentified frog far on the seemingly vast expanse of leaf.
As far as I can see, this is a male starry night reed frog. The females are even more spectacular.
If any of my readers find that I have identified the frogs incorrectly then please contact me or comment on this blog page.
