Hairy Frog

• GeneralIt breaks its own toe bones to push claws out through the skin.
• reproducciónIn the breeding season the males grow hair-like filaments of skin, which increase the surface available for taking up oxygen while they guard the eggs.
• It breaks its own bones to defend itself: when threatened it contracts muscles that deliberately fracture the toe bones of its hind feet and drive them out through the skin, forming bone claws. It is the only vertebrate known with this mechanism.
• The males' hair is not hair: it consists of dermal filaments full of capillaries that work as extra gills, letting the male stay submerged for weeks guarding the clutch without coming up to breathe.
• It is still not known how the claws retract: they are assumed to return to position when the muscle relaxes and the wound heals, but the process has never been observed directly.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (amphibian)

Habitat and environment

Fast-flowing streams in the rainforests of Central and West Africa

Sexual maturity

2 years

Gestation / incubation

Larval development in fast-flowing streams

Litter / clutch size

500 eggs

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichobatrachus_robustus

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.