Surinam Toad

Surinam toads are blackish brown with broad, flat bodies and small, triangular heads. Their dark coloring helps them blend with their watery homes. Their hind feet are large, flattened, and webbed, while their front limbs are smaller with long splayed, or separated, fingers. This form helps them swim and find food. Surinam toads generally grow to be about five inches (12 centimeters) long.

The most interesting feature of Surinam toads are their egg-pits. Sometime after mating, the female lay their eggs. Somehow these eggs are transferred, or moved, to the female's back. She keeps the eggs in specialized egg-holding pits for the duration of the incubation period. The incubation period is the growth period between the time of fertilization and the time of hatching. When the young Surinam toads are ready to hatch they jump out of their egg-pits as miniature versions of their parents. These little Surinam toads are called froglets.

Surinam toads are aquatic, or water-living amphibians. They spend their entire lives in the rivers and streams of Amazon and Orinoco river systems of South America.

Surinam toads are carnivorous, or meat-eating, toads. They feed mainly on a diet of insects. Since Surinam toads have very small eyes, they do not see very well. Instead of using their eyes to find food, they hunt with their long outstretched fingers. The tips of their fingers are covered with tiny hairs. As they sweep their fingers through the mud, they pick up many tiny food particles which they then eat. Surinam toads are often preyed upon by snakes and birds.

Surinam toads have a life span of up to about 10 years.

Source: Encyclopedia of Animals