African wart frog

African wart frog

We are delighted that Dr Heike Ostermann has taken on the sponsorship of the warty frog. Congratulations!

African wart frog (more accurate would be: spiny wart frog!) - Acanthixalus spinosus

The small, inconspicuous tree frog has found a particularly safe niche for reproduction. It lays its eggs exclusively in water-filled tree holes or small tree hollows, where the hatching tadpoles, unlike in a pond, have no predators to fear. These small pools of water are also guarded by a parent animal. If such an inconspicuous frog is caught, it sticks out an intensely yellow-coloured tongue as a fright reaction and plays dead, which is successful with some predators. It lives in the lowland rainforests of West and Central Africa.