The purple frog is considered to be among the world’s weird animals. The purple frog, as its name suggests, is dark purple in color. Its body is similar to most frogs yet the purple frog is chubby in shape and measures seven centimeters in length. The frog is often described as looking ‘bloated’ in appearance. The purple frog is considered a strange animal as its head looks like it is too small in comparison to the size of its body. Its fore limbs and hind limbs lack length and end in partially webbed feet featuring rounded toes. The frog is in possession of an unusually pointy snout and was first discovered in Western India by Franky Bossuyt and S.D. Biju in the year of 2003.
The purple frog has been named Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis by scientists and it is a relative of a frog family named Sooglossidae found in the Seychelles. Its scientific name derives from nasika, the Sanskrit word for nose, a reference to the frog’s unusually pointy snout, batrachus which is the Greek word for frog and Sahyadri, the name for the mountain range on which the frog was discovered.
The frog spends the majority of its time underground: These weird animals live 1.3m – 3.7m underground and it was the frog’s reclusiveness that caused scientists to fail to notice the species sooner. The frog mainly feeds on termites and uses its tongue and buccal groove to do so. The frog surfaces only for two weeks in duration, typically during the monsoon, and it does this for the purpose of mating. The mating cry of these weird animals is similar that of a chicken. When the frog does breed, it does so in ponds and ditches.
The purple frog is considered to be amongst the world’s rare animals. Such is its rarity that it is considered an endangered species and there are many conservation projects currently in action that attempt to save the purple frog from extinction.
Comments on this entry are closed.