The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 08 (of 10)Gadow, Hans
Science
The Cambridge natural history, Vol. 08 (of 10)
Gadow, Hans
Animals
_L. mystacinus_ is another Brazilian species, about 2 inches in length. Its
specific name refers to the dark brown stripe which runs from the tip of
the mouth through the eye to the tympanum. This species is thoroughly
terrestrial, and never enters the water. It digs a cavity, the size of an
ordinary tea-cup, under stones or rotten trunks, always in the
neighbourhood of ponds and just so high above the water that the latter can
rise up to the nest in the rainy reason. The straw-coloured eggs are laid
in this cavity, and are enveloped in a foamy, sticky mass, like the
well-beaten white of an egg. The young tadpoles seem to live on this froth
until the rains set them free. When, however, the rains delay and a drought
kills the broods of other less circumspect species, these tadpoles, still
provided with gills and long tails, remain in their moist nest or withdraw
further beneath the rotten stumps, huddled together in large numbers until
the next rainy season.
Similar nursing habits have been recorded of _L. albilabris_, which
inhabits Mexico, Cuba, and several other West Indian islands. The same
applies to _L. typhonius_. Gundlach found eggs {220}of this "Sapo" in
Puerto Rico on the 4th of November; on the 25th the young showed the first
signs of hind-limbs, on the 3rd of December of fore-limbs, and on the 7th
of the same month they began to climb out of the water.
_Paludicola_ is a semi-aquatic genus with some eighteen species, ranging
from Mexico to Patagonia and across the Andes into Chili. Some of them have
a peculiar gland on the lumbar region, or large, flat warts on the back,
sometimes arranged in longitudinal folds. The toes are slightly webbed, or
free, according to the more or less pronounced aquatic habits.
[Illustration: FIG. 45.–_Paludicola fuscomaculata_, × 1, with vocal sacs
partly filled.]
_P. fuscomaculata_, an inhabitant of Southern Brazil, Paraguay, and
Uruguay, is a short-limbed frog, with spreading slender toes and a small
head. There are shovel-shaped, black, horny tubercles on the metatarsus.
The general colour is olive above, with darker markings and confluent
white-edged spots; the limbs are cross-barred; the lumbar glands are black,
with a white margin in front. The male has a vocal sac. Budgett[95] gives
the following account of its habits:–
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