Arrabal's Suriname toad

The Yellow Surinam Toad ( Pipa arrabali ) is a South American Froschlurch from the family of tongueless.

Features

The Yellow Surinam Toad is an average of 4 and can be up to 6 inches long. The head is rather broad in this type, the width of the mouth angle to angle of the mouth contained four times in the body length. The snout is bluntly rounded and projecting over the foot column, the nostrils are wide apart. The corners of the mouth are easily concealed on both sides of wrinkles, but there are no appendages on the snout available. The eyes are small and contain about 3.5 times in interorbital distance. On premaxilla and maxilla teeth are present, which are greatly reduced in size and number. The fingertips bear the species-specific with all attachments and Surinam Toads have touch function. They are also referred as " Star-shaped organ " and Surinam Toads as " Star finger toads ". The Amber Surinam Toad the fingertips branch into four equal lobes. The hind legs are long and be about 110% of the body length; the toes are equipped with up reaching to the tips bent- webbed. The three inner toes keratinös and darker than the rest.

The color of the living animal is at the top gray to pale brownish white with numerous dark spots on the underside.

Occurrence

This species is distributed from Guyana, Suriname, western Venezuela to northern and central Brazil and has so far only in smaller, more or less persistent standing water ( ponds ) are encountered. When a pond dries out, drag the animals to another. You can quickly move on land by hopping.

Way of life

The Yellow Surinam toad is nocturnal in the wild. During the day, the animals can be observed, although the air scooping at the water surface, but they hide again immediately at the bottom of the water, where they remain until the next breath. The Surinam Toads come about every five minutes to the water surface to get some air, they are disturbed, but they also can endure up to 20 minutes under water.

In foraging, the animals go exclusively at night. They swim slowly while on the ground and fumble with outstretched forelegs the environment. The Yellow Wabenköte eats in the wild, especially tadpoles that are unearthed while wandering swimming. The tadpoles are Saugschnappen, combined with a simultaneous grasping movement, sucked up from the ground or from the open water. When foraging, the animals also penetrate in foam nests of Leptodactylus species ( L. knudseni, L. pentadactylus ), where they also can stay several days to.

On a visual stimulation by moving the spoils, as it is necessary for other Tongueless Frogs to trigger the feeding response (eg dwarf clawed frogs ) P. arrabali seems not to be dependent. It is oriented more to the smell and touch, and the well-developed lateral line organ.

Reproduction

Male Yellow Surinam toads call in the wild, especially in the rainy season ( October to June) and exclusively at night. The call is like a metallic click, and is expelled under water. The males sit with an erect upper body to the bottom of the pond, partially hidden under leaves.

The Yellow Surinam Toad brings depending on the size of the dam 6-16 already fully developed young toads to the world. A pairing though so far could not be observed, but it has similar run, as in the Great Surinam Toad: male and female lead under water a type of " mating dance " with loops on, with the aim that the sinking eggs land on the back of the female and there stick. By the time the eggs are overgrown by the skin of a female and soon disappear completely in the back. The " honeycomb " are limited in the Yellow Surinam Toad on the rear part of the back, where the swollen skin bulging backpack like soon.

Newly hatched young toads have a body length 10-14 mm.