Paradoxical Frog

Image: Wikipedia
Pseudis paradoxa

It's the amazing, shrinking frog!

The Paradoxical Frog spends approximately every moment of its life in ponds, lakes and lagoons in the eastern side of South America. They don't like dry land at all.

Life starts with a bunch of perfectly ordinary eggs deposited among aquatic plants. They hatch into tadpoles who exhibit the normal gluttony of most any tadpole the world over. They have to eat because they need to grow up big and strong before they can metamorphose into adults.

The thing with the Paradoxical Frog is once the tadpole grows up big and strong, it simply keeps going. It gets bigger and bigger and bigger until, after four months of growth, it can reach as much as 25 cm (10 inches) long. That's about 4 times bigger than its parents!

Image: Christopher

It then goes through metamorphosis, ending up as an adult some 7 cm (3 inches) or a little less in length.

Video: Joe Furman

Can you imagine an adult frog looking up at a giant tadpole, spreading its arms out as far as they can go and saying "I remember you when you were a tyke this big".

That's one baby that won't be getting bounced on his parent's knee.