As I nervously watch the pre-election news, I find myself envying the American spadefoot toads, named for the special keratinized 'toe' that lets them bury themselves up to ½ meter beneath the soil for prolonged dormancy.
They can lay wrapped in mud & their own shed skin for >1 year.
Sounds nice.🐸
They can lay wrapped in mud & their own shed skin for >1 year.
Sounds nice.🐸
Comments
They lay dormant, waking only for the ultra-low frequency (< 100 Hz) sounds of thunder or rainfall. Most have vertical slit pupils.
After a brief period eating plankton, they can turn into a carnivore form, or in extreme conditions, specialized cannibal form which preferentially eat non-kin tadpoles of their own species.
So: cannibalistic burrowing promiscuous desert toads!
https://www.davidpfenniglab.com/spadefoots/
-Greg