Cranwell's horned frog
Ceratophrys cranwelli
— Where the name comes from
Ceratophrys is “horned eyebrow”, from kéras and ophrys, for the two points of skin above the eyes. Cranwelli recalls Jorge Cranwell, a twentieth-century Argentine herpetologist. In English it is the Pacman frog, after the video game: seen head on it is very nearly all mouth, and the comparison is the most effective anyone has found.
— Facts
- Group
- Amphibians · Amphibia
- Order
- Frogs and toads
- Habitat
- Dry Chaco, thorn scrub, temporary pools
- Range
- Northern Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, western Brazil
- Size
- 7–13 cm, 200–500 g
- Diet
- Insects, other frogs, lizards, rodents
- Lifespan
- 10 years, over 15 in captivity
— Characteristics
- 01
Its mouth is almost as wide as its body.
- 02
It spends the dry season buried inside a cocoon of dead skin.
- 03
On the lower jaw it carries two sharp bony points that work as fangs.
— What sets it apart
It bites harder than an amphibian ought to. Measuring jaw pressure with a sensor showed that an adult reaches thirty newtons, and that scaling the figure up to the largest species of the genus would pass five hundred: values belonging to a medium-sized carnivorous mammal. It is a frog that does not flee, does not hop away and does not hide — it sits in a hole with only its eyes showing and waits for something to bite.
