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The African bullfrog is a voracious carnivore, eating insects and other invertebrates, small rodents, reptiles, small birds, fish, and other amphibians that can fit in their mouths. [ 5 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] It is also a cannibalistic species—the male African bullfrog is known for occasionally eating the tadpoles he guards, [ 11 ] and juveniles also ...
Most organisms do not all fit neatly into either group, however. Some species are highly specialized (the most extreme case being monophagous, eating one specific type of food), others less so, and some can tolerate many different environments. In other words, there is a continuum from highly specialized to broadly generalist species.
An adult weighs 1.5 to 2.5 kg (3.3 to 5.5 lb), making them the fifth heaviest living amphibian in the world after their South China, Chinese and Japanese cousins and the goliath frog, while the largest cane toads may also weigh as much as a hellbender. Hellbenders reach sexual maturity at about five years of age, and may live 30 years in captivity.
A few species deposit eggs on land or bypass the tadpole stage. Adult frogs generally have a carnivorous diet consisting of small invertebrates, but omnivorous species exist and a few feed on plant matter. Frog skin has a rich microbiome which is important to their health. Frogs are extremely efficient at converting what they eat into body mass.
The largest living amphibian is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) [41] but this is a great deal smaller than the largest amphibian that ever existed—the extinct 9 m (30 ft) Prionosuchus, a crocodile-like temnospondyl dating to 270 million years ago from the middle Permian of Brazil. [42]
Image credits: an1malpulse #5. Animal campaigners are calling for a ban on the public sale of fireworks after a baby red panda was thought to have died from stress related to the noise.
General characteristics of a large marine ecosystem (Gulf of Alaska) Killer whales (orcas) are highly visible marine apex predators that hunt many large species. But most biological activity in the ocean takes place with microscopic marine organisms that cannot be seen individually with the naked eye, such as marine bacteria and phytoplankton.
Researchers evaluated the health of more than 8,000 amphibian species around the world and determined that nearly 41% — 2,871 in total — are globally threatened.