Being extraordinarily different – Issue #76

Hello Explorer,
Today we are taking a look at one of the coolest and strangest frogs in all of South Africa. This frog is admired for its toxicity, strange mobility and its very specialised diet. This frog is also one that is great to admire for the great aposematic colouration that it has.
The frog we’re discussing is the Banded Rubber Frog (Phrynomantis bifasciatus), also known as the Red-Banded Walked Frog, Red-Banded Crevice Creeper, Fire Walking frog and South African Snake-Necked Frog. Even though this frog goes by many names, it is easily identified by its colouration, having a jet-black body with striking red band on either side with a red blotch on the rump??.
Due to their striking aposematic colouration these frogs have been exported to Germany for the pet trade before 1931 already. The captive bred lines has already been bred to be redder or almost no red through line breeding this species for the desired traits. Even though these frogs have been exported they are not threatened or endangered, as they have a wide distribution range that stretches through multiple national, provincial, and even private nature reserves. Along with their wide distribution, females lay between 300 to 1500 eggs in a single clutch, which makes that the few specimens that are caught for the pet trade is quickly replaced.
The strangest part of this frog is that it prefers to walk and run rather than jump, they are the exception to the rule. Yes, that is why one of its many names are Banded Rubber Walking frog. Unlike other frogs the banded rubber frogs prefer to walk when looking for food or traveling to a crevice to go sleep in and would rather run away from predators that jump away. Observing a rubber banded frog walk or run away from you is the strangest sight, and personally my brain struggled to figure out what is going on, the first time I saw one of these frogs!
The Banded Rubber Frog is the only frog species within South Africa that has toxic skin secretions, being the exception to the rule that any Frogs in South Africa are safe to handle. The frogs can be handled without problems, but when hurt or if they feel threatened in any way, they will excrete a milky toxic substance through their skin. This substance has a strong foul odour, and it is deadly to other frogs, and poses a danger to humans, even though no human fatalities have been recorded because of the toxins. The toxins usually result in local irritations and systemic toxicity in humans. Local symptoms include temporary inflammation, and prolonged contact can lead to throbbing pain that may continue for up to 10 hours after exposure.
As for their diet, that is where things get really interesting, Rubber Banded Frogs feeds mostly on ants. They will eat wasps, bees, termites, grasshoppers and spiders when they cannot find ants, but if there are ants on the menu there is no other choice for these frogs. Most of the poison arrow frogs obtain their poison from the food they eat in the wild, but I am unsure if this is the case with the Banded Rubber Frogs as well. I have read reports that they maintain their foul odour in the substance they secrete from their skin when they are upset in captivity, but I am yet to find information on whether they maintain their toxicity or not.
Even though they are so poisonous these frogs are still on the menu for the Hammerkop (Scopus umbretta), which has shown to be unaffected by the extreme poisons that this frog produces. So even this very toxic frog still falls victim to predators in nature!
Did you know that there are frogs that walk instead of jump? What other species have you observed with strange habits that are the exception to the rule within their larger group?

If you would like to send me a message with your answers, feel free to do so on Instagram @abugmanslife or via email to [email protected].