ANYWHERE BUT ANTARTICA

With the exception of the Antarctica, amphibians can be found virtually everywhere across the globe. They live on every continent but Antarctica, though they are absent from some isolated islands too. The greatest number of species occur in tropical regions, or areas with warm temperatures and high rainfall. Though they’ve surely succedeed in evolution and their adaptative capacity is outstanding, the extreme conditions placed by antartic weather would be too much even for these masters of adaptation. Some forgs in colder regions are able to survive cold er weathers but always in waiting of the warm season. Already the inner Arctic is off-limits, since avarage summer temperature never goes over 10°. That’s around the temperature at which frogs go into hibernation and it would mean living in a costant state of torpor.* When it is too cold though, frogs will freeze to death like any other animal. Applying the same logic to Antartica, where temperatures can reach -98° and usually never go over 0° in summer, frogs wouldn’t last a minute there.

* Jump to pg. 40 for more on hibernation.

Afrog’s skin is protective, has a respiratory function, can absorb water and helps control body temperature. There are blood vessels near the surface of the skin and when a frog is underwater, oxygen diffuses directly into the blood. This is the reason that makes it vital for a frog to keep themselves moist. As a result, the greatest number of species occurs in tropical regions, or areas with warm temperatures and high rainfall. Nevertheles, this characteristic didn’t stop them from thriving in environments that sound undoubtfully inhospitable to most, but not fpr them.

Hundreds of species can be found in aquatic habitats, like ponds, streams, and wetlands, but also in parks or gardens, rainforests, woodlands but, most surprisingly, even in sand dunes. It’s the case of the desert rain frog (Breviceps macrops). This pebble-shaped frog, about 5cm big, is mostly found on a small coastal strip of land about 10Km wide between the African countries of Namibia and South Africa. The small area of sand dunes often gets a lot of fog, which supplies moisture in an otherwise arid and dry region. Fogs that originate offshore from the collision of the cold Benguela Current and warm air from the Hadley Cell create a fog belt that frequently envelops parts of the desert. Coastal regions can experience over 180 days of thick fog a year, making it a perfect environment for the rain frog.

The Namibian desert temperatures along the coast are stable and generally range between 9–20 °C annually.

Tropical rainforests have high humidity throughout the whole year. About 88% during the wet season and approximately 77% in the dry season.