Amphibians

Looks like a poison dart frog, but it’s not! Like their South American counterparts, frogs of the genus Mantella on Madagascar wear bright colors to draw attention to skin poisons. For humans, however, the small frogs of the island in the Indian Ocean are completely harmless. Ebenau’s colorful frog (Mantella ebenaui) doesn’t match its English name ‘Brown frog’. It wears …

Madagascar is home to many frogs that are found nowhere else in the world. One such unique inhabitant of the tropical island is Scaphiophryne marmorata, the Marbled Rain Frog. The males of the Marbled Rain Frog grow to 32 to 36 millimeters in size – that’s just a little more than two sugar cubes. You can easily recognize them by …

A true giant among the frogs of Madagascar is the White-lipped Bright-eyed Frog. Its scientific name is Boophis albilabris. Males measure up to 8,1 cm of length, the long jump-legs not yet measured. A very generous “handful of frog“! Presumably, Boophis albilabris is Madagascar’s biggest tree inhabiting frog. Only the tomato frog living on the ground is bigger. Between fingers …

Anyone who has ever been on the road in Andasibe-Mantadia will surely have discovered it at night: Boophis viridis, the Green Bright-Eyed Frog. Most specimens have a lot of red dots on their body, which is especially noticeable at night. They only grow to 29 to 35 mm, with the females occupying the upper size places. You can easily distinguish …

It’s not green, the Madagascar bright-eyed or tree frog! Absolutely right. The Madagascar bright-eyed frog, Boophis madagascariensis, captivates less with colourful colours than with its impressive body size. It is a good six to eight centimetres long, individual specimens even ten centimetres from the tip of the nose to the coccyx. Among Madagascar’s frogs, it is thus one of the …

An especially pretty frog is the blue reed frog (Heterixalus madagascariensis) or Madagascar reed frog: There are yellow and sky blue variations, with yellow or orange arms, legs, hands and feet. In the sun, they often become almost white. Literature mentioned the sky blue frog for the first time in 1841: The French zoologist André Duméril and his assistant, Gabriel …

1875 fiel dem französischen Naturforscher Alfred Grandidier ein knallroter, dicker Frosch auf einer seiner vielen Reisen nach Madagaskar in die Hände. Gebracht hatte ihn ein Landsmann, der sich als Händler an der Ostküste niedergelassen hatte: Ein gewisser Herr Guinet. Der weit gereiste Grandidier nahm Tiere der noch unbekannten Art mit nach Frankreich und beschrieb sie dort erstmals. Warum ihm der …

You think poison dart frogs exist only at the Amazon? You are miles out! Madagascar has amphibians very similar to those, the Mantellas or coloured frogs. Like poison dart frogs, Mantella frogs produce a poison secreted via their skin, but it is completely harmless for human beings. Genetically, the Madagascan Mantellas are not related to poison dart frogs. Mantella frogs …

Actually, Madagascan Mantellae all look very similar: Striking colours, small and slender, terrestrial frogs. But one steps out the line: The climbing Mantella (Mantella laevigata). This Mantella was described in 1913 by British zoologists Paul Ashleyford Methuen and John Hewitt, who did a seven months lasting expedition to Madagascar two years ago. The climbing Mantella grows up to maximally 29 …