0:05 Well, hi there.
0:10 Nobody likes frogs. Frog content is the
0:12 most consistently underwatched content
0:16 that we make on this channel, but I
0:21 love frogs. They're amazing. In 2022,
0:24 when the war in Ukraine began and the
0:25 future of humanity seemed in the
0:27 balance, I was in the middle of the
0:31 Amazon rainforest, having just
0:34 documented dozens of species of frogs,
0:37 many unlike anything I had ever seen
0:39 before. And as much as I was concerned
0:41 about my family and the future of
0:44 humanity and civilization, I also
0:46 couldn't fight the nagging feeling of
0:49 dread that the world might end without
0:50 us getting to share all of the
0:53 incredible frogs that we had found with
0:55 you. And while the world has continued
0:57 long enough for us to return to the
0:58 United States and share all of the
1:00 amazing frogs that we found with you and
1:03 the world, the fact that nobody likes frogs
1:05 frogs
1:08 remains a fact. Nobody likes frogs,
1:11 but I do. So, I'm foolishly considering
1:14 making a featurelength documentary about
1:17 frogs and the other extent amphibians to
1:20 release later this year. A documentary
1:21 on par with the documentaries that we
1:24 have released over the last two years on
1:26 all of the lipidosis reptiles and all of
1:28 the mammals. But to be perfectly honest
1:32 with you, I think it's a stupid idea
1:35 because as much as I like frogs,
1:37 I feel like I'm the only one who does.
1:41 Now, I should mention that I love toads.
1:44 I adore them. And as much as we saw some
1:46 insane non-toads in the Amazon, some of
1:49 the craziest frogs I've ever seen in my
1:52 life, two of my absolute favorite frogs
1:54 that we saw the entire time were this
1:57 giant cane toad, which is a pretty
2:01 normal toad, just ginormous, and this
2:05 absolutely unreal toad. I had no idea
2:07 that there were toads like this in
2:11 existence. It's insane. I love it so
2:15 much. We found it on the same night as
2:18 this legendary frog. And while this frog
2:21 got the most attention by far, this toad
2:25 stole the show for me. I mean, just look
2:27 at this thing. Have you ever seen a toad
2:29 like it? By the time we found this toad,
2:31 I had already seen a large number of
2:34 crusted forest toads. They were cool,
2:36 but nothing to write home about. But
2:39 this, I mean, its coloring is absolutely
2:41 glorious. I love the contrast and the
2:44 pattern, but that isn't why I love it so
2:47 much. This toad structure is unlike
2:49 anything I had ever seen on a toad or
2:51 knew to exist. I mean, I have a degree
2:55 in zoology, a PhD in biology, bless a
2:58 masters, but I had no idea that there
3:01 were any toads with hard bony spikes
3:05 down their backs or huge dilophosaurus
3:08 crests, which were also hard and bony,
3:11 as were the giant wartthog spikes at the
3:14 corners of its mouth. And then it had
3:15 rows of soft spikes, like those of a
3:17 bearded dragon going down each side.
3:20 Anyway, it was probably my favorite frog
3:23 that we found the entire time in the
3:25 Amazon, which is saying a lot because
3:28 check out some of the others. And yes, I
3:32 have been calling toads frogs this whole
3:33 time. Because there is something else
3:35 that my education never taught me. It's
3:37 that toads
3:40 are frogs. In fact, a good argument can
3:44 be made that they're tree frogs, which
3:46 is hilarious and rad. But you don't have
3:48 to take my word for it.
3:51 I'll show you. To make the case that
3:53 toads are tree frogs, I actually want to
3:56 start with this amazing frog, the
3:59 casketed tree frog, which while not my
4:01 favorite frog of the trip, was pretty
4:04 much everyone else's favorite frog. And
4:06 it's not hard to see why. It's an
4:10 unbelievably cool frog. Unless you
4:13 yourself are a frog. These guys are frog
4:15 eating specialists. If there's one thing
4:17 on this planet that loves frogs more
4:20 than I do, it's these guys. They eat
4:23 frogs. They carry frogs on their backs.
4:25 They're just legendary. This long-nosed
4:28 casaded tree frog was one of two species
4:31 of cascaded tree frogs that we found on
4:34 that trip. And this ginormous ground
4:36 dwelling cascaded tree frog was the
4:38 other, the king cobras of frogs. And
4:40 both of these spectacular frogs are
4:43 members of the family hemifract. These
4:45 are of all of the frogs that we're going
4:47 to discuss today, the family most
4:51 distantly related to all the rest, but
4:53 totally rad. While most of the gener in
4:55 this family look more like traditional
4:57 tree frogs than do cascaded tree frogs,
5:00 they are all pretty unusual. more in the
5:02 way that they reproduce than the way
5:04 that they look. Because other than the
5:06 cascaded tree frogs of the genus
5:08 hemifractus, the other members of the
5:10 hemifact today look pretty much like
5:12 normal tree frogs. In fact, for a long
5:13 time, the whole family was thought to be
5:16 a subf family of the most tree frog
5:18 family of all tree frog families, the
5:21 family hil that we will discuss shortly.
5:23 because morphologically they are so
5:25 similar. It wasn't until we started
5:26 using molecular techniques that we
5:28 discovered that of all of the families
5:30 that we're going to discuss in this cate
5:34 these are the most distantly related of
5:37 all to hil. So if these are tree frogs
5:39 and hilids are tree frogs then from a
5:42 phlogenetic standpoint everything that
5:44 we're going to discuss in this cate are
5:46 tree frogs even if they no longer live
5:49 in trees. Hemifrids are native to South
5:51 and Central America. It includes six
5:53 genre and some phoggeneticists consider
5:56 it to be not one but two or even three
5:59 separate families because
6:01 families aren't a real phenomenon.
6:04 Clades are real and families are just
6:06 names that we give to clades that are
6:08 distinct beyond some arbitrary and
6:10 difficult to define threshold. And your
6:12 threshold might be different from mine.
6:14 So we might disagree about which group
6:17 should be a family versus a subf family.
6:20 And maybe neither of us are right. But
6:21 given that this lineage has been
6:24 diversifying independently for just as
6:26 long as all of the frogs that we're
6:28 going to discuss from this point on in
6:30 this cate, it shouldn't be too shocking
6:33 that the divergences might be fairly
6:34 profound. But despite considerable
6:36 genetic and sometimes morphological
6:38 differences between genera, they are
6:40 united by some very unique reproductive
6:43 behavior. These guys produce very few
6:46 eggs for a frog with very large yolks.
6:48 These very large yolks are important as
6:51 they spend no or almost no time as tadpoles.
6:53 tadpoles.
6:55 Most have what is called direct
6:57 development where they develop directly
6:59 into froglets. And the females carry the
7:01 eggs on their backs either stuck to
7:03 their backs or in little pouches until
7:06 they're ready to hatch. Similar in this
7:09 way to some of their extremely distant
7:11 relatives in the family pipid. Sorry I
7:13 didn't give you trypophobes any heads up
7:15 on that, but uh given the subject
7:17 matter, you should have seen it coming.
7:19 And studies show that trigger warnings
7:21 just make it worse. And just so you
7:25 know, my wife Lysa had trypophobia. Bad.
7:27 Maybe the worst case I've seen. But one
7:29 day she decided to overcome it. And she
7:32 did it the way that we know works the
7:34 best to overcome irrational fears
7:36 through exposure. The same way that
7:38 people overcome their fear of snakes
7:39 almost every time that we open the
7:41 reptile room. And once you confront one
7:43 irrational fear, it doesn't just change
7:45 your relationship to that one fear, but
7:47 to all of your fears. It doesn't make
7:49 you less afraid, but more able to
7:52 confront what you fear. It makes you
7:56 braver across the board. So do it. Face
7:59 the peipa and the lotus seed pods. And
8:01 if you're afraid of snakes, come hold
8:04 one. But now, let's talk about the
8:06 family hila. While everything that we're
8:08 yet to discuss in this cate are more
8:10 closely related to hyids than hilids are
8:12 to hemifacts,
8:13 all of these frogs are closely related.
8:16 And hilids are among the closest living
8:18 relatives of hemifacts. It just turns
8:21 out that there is a stronger case for
8:24 Pac-Man frogs being hyids than hemifids
8:26 being hyids. Though I don't know of
8:29 anybody making that case. To my
8:30 knowledge, the main dispute at this
8:32 point in time is about whether frogs
8:34 like this legendary giant monkey tree
8:37 frog that we found in the Amazon or this
8:39 wonderful whites tree frog are part of
8:41 this family or are representatives of
8:43 two families that are currently nested
8:46 within the highay. But for now, these
8:48 guys both seem to be part of this epic
8:50 tree frog family. So it includes the
8:53 Australian tree frogs and leaf frogs,
8:55 but not just Australian tree frogs and
8:59 leaf frogs, but more than 50 total genre
9:01 on every continent except Antarctica,
9:04 with most having a traditional tree frog
9:07 look, including sticky toe pads and
9:10 elliptical pupils oriented horizontally,
9:12 generally not vertically. That said, you
9:14 see these same features in many other
9:16 groups like the hemifactids and even
9:19 more distantly related groups like
9:22 racoorid. So they aren't the only frogs
9:24 with these attributes. And not all of
9:27 them live in trees or have sticky pads
9:29 like the swimming frogs of South
9:31 America. And leaf frogs, including
9:32 things like redeyed tree frogs and
9:35 monkey tree frogs, have vertical pupils
9:37 like a cat. So they're not the only ones
9:39 with these features, and they don't all
9:41 have them. But for the most part, if you
9:44 find a topad tree frog in the Americas,
9:46 Australia, Europe, or Central Asia, it's
9:48 probably a hilar.
9:50 Of course, it gets really tricky in
9:52 Eastern Asia where the rakaphorids are
9:54 also found. In Central and South
9:56 America, if it carries its eggs on its
9:58 back, especially if they develop
9:59 directly into froglets, then it's
10:01 probably not a hil. So, that's one way
10:05 to tell, but we will see later. There
10:07 are others you might confuse for hilids.
10:10 So, those are the hilids. and they are
10:13 possibly the only true tree frogs on the
10:15 planet. However, if the tree frogs
10:17 include more than one family, especially
10:19 if the hemifids are also going to be
10:22 tree frogs, then the closest relatives
10:24 to the hilids would have to be tree
10:26 frogs, too. You can include the
10:28 hemifacts or exclude them. But if the
10:31 hilids and any other frogs on the planet
10:33 are going to be considered tree frogs
10:36 from a phlogenetic standpoint, then it
10:38 would have to include the closest
10:41 relatives of the hilids also. So what
10:43 are they? Well, it turns out that the
10:45 closest relatives of the hilids are
10:48 assuming that leaf frogs and the
10:51 Australian tree frogs are hils and not
10:55 separate families. the 14 families in
10:57 the clay leptodactylopiformies.
11:00 A caid that itself contains two major
11:03 clades, one with three families and the
11:07 other with 11. All 14 being the closest
11:10 relatives to the hilids. All equally
11:13 related to the hilids as these families
11:16 had not yet diverged from one another at
11:17 the time that their shared ancestors
11:19 diverged from the shared ancestors of
11:22 the hils. an event which happened since
11:24 the ancestors that they shared with the
11:26 hilage diverged from the ancestors of
11:28 the hemifacts. And I'm going to start
11:31 with the small cate because it is going
11:34 to get interesting really fast. The two
11:36 families that are most closely related
11:39 to one another being the families aromo
11:42 badday the cryptic poison frogs and
11:45 dendrobat the poison dart frogs. And the
11:48 odd man out, a little family called buffonade,
11:50 buffonade,
11:52 the toads. So the two families of poison
11:56 frogs are more closely related to toads
11:58 than they are to anything else, which is
12:01 crazy. And toads are among the closest
12:05 relatives of tree frogs. Closer even
12:08 than are the hemifacts. So toads are
12:10 definitely frogs
12:12 and arguably tree frogs. really just
12:14 depending on whether we think tree frogs
12:17 are exclusively hilids or if anything
12:19 else should be included too. But let's
12:21 talk about this clay because I think we
12:24 can agree that it is at least as
12:26 legendary as it is toxic. And it's
12:28 probably the most toxic trio of frog
12:30 families alive today. I think there's a
12:33 good reason that for much of my life I
12:36 thought of frogs as one thing and toads
12:38 as another. Frogs are obviously a very
12:40 diverse group, even without including
12:43 toads, but so are toads. There are more
12:46 than 50 genre found on every continent
12:48 except for Antarctica and until
12:50 recently, Australia. We could make a
12:52 featurelength movie just about toad
12:55 genre. And while toads are unique among
12:57 frogs, there's really nothing about them
12:59 that would make you think that they
13:02 aren't themselves frogs. They have all
13:04 of the normal frog features just like
13:06 humans have all of the normal primate
13:08 features or whales have all of the
13:10 normal mammal features. Well, except for
13:12 legs. In fact, it takes a pretty trained
13:14 eye to spot the difference between a
13:18 toad and really any other lumpy frog.
13:20 And not all of them are even all that
13:23 lumpy. So, what does set toads apart?
13:26 Well, for one thing, all toads are
13:28 toothless, which probably explains why
13:29 they have to pee on you when you grab
13:31 one. How else are they going to defend
13:35 themselves? Oh, that's right. Poison.
13:37 The easiest feature to spot on toads,
13:40 even smooth toads that you won't see on
13:44 most non-toads, even lumpy non-toads, is
13:47 a pair of poison excreting paratid
13:49 glands behind the eyes. However, some
13:51 other amphibians, including other frogs,
13:54 do have them also. And others that lack
13:56 them do have similar looking glands that
13:58 are not technically paratid glands. But
14:01 toads will be toothless, something that
14:04 isn't unique to toads either. About 20
14:06 different frog lineages are toothless.
14:08 But again, they will also have paratid
14:11 glands. And they will generally lay eggs
14:13 in paired strings instead of egg masses,
14:15 more typical of frogs. And they'll pee
14:18 on you. They always pee on you. It's in
14:19 their contracts. Their closest
14:21 relatives, as you know, are the two
14:23 families of poison frogs. Not that
14:24 shocking when you see toads like
14:26 harlequin toads, like these that we
14:28 found in the Amazon. But it is something
14:30 that I think most people don't know and
14:32 wouldn't have guessed. Not that most
14:33 people even know that there are two
14:35 families of poison frogs. And no, the
14:38 second family isn't the Mantelade. Those
14:41 are extremely different relatives, but
14:43 still probably owe their existence to
14:46 certain millipedes. I didn't know that
14:48 poison frogs were closely related to
14:49 toads or that there were two families of
14:52 poison frogs until very recently, but
14:53 I'm pretty stoked about this
14:55 information. I have long been aware of
14:57 the family Dendrobat, the poisoned dart
15:00 frogs. 16 gener, often spectacularly
15:03 colorful, extremely bold, often highly
15:05 toxic frogs from South and Central
15:07 America. I would love to do a video on
15:09 just these rad little frogs in the near
15:11 future. They're amazing. It was the
15:14 family arroad day, the five genera of
15:16 cryptic poison frogs that were new to
15:18 me. And in fairness to my education, I
15:20 took herptology before these two
15:22 families were separated. And some
15:24 phoggeneticists to this day don't think
15:26 they deserve to be regarded as a full
15:28 family, but simply as a dendrobat subf
15:30 family. So it isn't too shocking that I
15:33 didn't hear about this family. They look
15:35 very much like dendrobats. They're about
15:37 the same size as dendrobats, various
15:39 degrees of small, and they live in the
15:42 same places. So telling them apart can
15:44 be very tricky. I can tell you that if
15:47 it is extremely colorful or if it has
15:49 all black eyes, it's almost certainly a
15:51 gender ballad. But if it's more cryptic
15:54 and has clearly visible irises, that
15:56 doesn't mean that it isn't a denderbat.
15:57 The bold coloration generally indicates
15:59 a highly toxic frog. The bright
16:01 coloration is called aposmatic
16:03 coloration and is a warning to wouldbe
16:06 predators that eating the frog would
16:08 likely be catastrophic. Cryptic poison
16:10 frogs, as well as more cryptically
16:12 colored poison dart frogs, tend to be
16:15 much less toxic and thus rely more on
16:17 camouflage than chemical defense, though
16:19 some can apparently produce a skunk-like
16:21 defensive odor. So, I can tell you that
16:23 bright frogs are likely to be
16:25 dendrobats, and you shouldn't lick them.
16:27 I don't have a great way of teaching you
16:29 to differentiate cryptic poison frogs
16:31 from cryptically colored poison dart
16:33 frogs, but if you have to lick a poison
16:36 frog, pick one that looks like it could
16:39 be a cryptic poison frog, even if it's a
16:41 bit stinky. Dendrobats are more likely
16:43 to be seen carrying tadpoles on their
16:46 backs or or raising them in small pools
16:48 such as in bromeilads, feeding them with
16:51 unfertilized eggs. So, if you see this,
16:53 don't lick it. But not all dendrobatids
16:56 do this. Some reproduce more like aroma
16:59 bats and and most other frogs in larger
17:02 bodies of water. So don't lick them just
17:03 because you found them breeding in a
17:05 stream or pond. There are other
17:07 differences, but they're extremely
17:09 subtle. It would probably be easier to
17:10 identify the species and then find out
17:13 which family that species is in than to
17:14 identify the family just by looking at
17:17 the frog. Unless it has high contrast,
17:19 bright colors, black eyes, or babies on
17:21 its back. or if you lick it and become
17:23 violently ill or die. Your last words
17:26 could be dendro badday. I want to say
17:29 thank you to our patrons at Patreon who
17:31 allow us the freedom to make videos that
17:35 we think are important but maybe won't
17:37 be rewarded by YouTube. If you like this
17:39 kind of content, if you love frogs as
17:42 much as I do, please consider supporting
17:44 us on Patreon and definitely check out
17:45 the host of cool features we have for
17:48 our patrons cuz we do try to provide a
17:52 lot to say thank you and to kind of pay
17:53 you guys back a little for all that you
17:55 do for us. The closest relatives to the
17:58 two families of poison frogs after toads
18:00 which are arguably a third family of
18:03 poison frogs giant often lumpy poison
18:07 frogs are the remaining 11 families in
18:08 the leptoductilmies.
18:12 A cate composed of two major clates one
18:14 with three families and the other with
18:17 eight. So these are in addition to the
18:19 two families of poison frogs, all of the
18:21 other frogs more closely related to
18:24 toads than they are to highlights.
18:25 Meaning that if any of them are tree
18:28 frogs, even if hemifracted or not, then
18:30 toads are not only frogs, but
18:33 specifically tree frogs. So let's find
18:35 out what's in this cate because it's a
18:38 cool one. Full of many frogs that you've
18:40 probably never seen before. with one of
18:42 the two clades being full of things that
18:44 look like they should be close relatives
18:47 of toads and the other
18:49 being full of things that most people
18:52 would probably consider tree frogs, some
18:54 of which are see-through. And I'm really
18:56 excited to talk about these crazy tree
18:58 frog like toad cousins. But I'm going to
19:01 start with the larger clay because it
19:03 has a bunch of amazing frogs you
19:05 probably didn't know existed. And one of
19:07 the strangest frog families there is,
19:10 but one you probably did know about.
19:14 This family, the family serade, the
19:16 three genera of South American horned
19:19 frogs, which don't always have horns,
19:22 but always look ridiculous with giant
19:25 heads and big mouths. They're the deep
19:28 sea angler fish of tetropods. frogs like
19:31 Pac-Man frogs and the somehow even more
19:33 absurd looking budgets frogs. If you
19:35 find a frog in South America that looks
19:38 like a disc, that's about one-third frog
19:43 head with tiny frog legs, that is almost
19:45 certainly what you have. Absurd. Their
19:48 closest relatives are the remaining
19:50 seven families in the cate, which are
19:52 all more closely related to one another
19:54 than they are to the South American
19:57 sometimes horn frogs. And of those other
19:59 seven, the one most distantly related to
20:02 the other six is probably the easiest of
20:04 all frogs that aren't toads to confuse
20:05 with a toad.
20:13 >> odanto frenade. Unless you have spent
20:16 significant time in southern and eastern
20:18 South America, you've probably never
20:20 seen one of these frogs before. forming
20:23 three genera. Most of them look like
20:26 toads, but a few of them look like the
20:27 Texas Longhorn equivalent of South
20:30 American horn frogs. I mean, just look
20:32 at those horns, but most look like
20:35 toads. They're all bumpy. They tend to
20:37 lack the specific parotted glands seen
20:39 in toads right behind the eyes. So, in
20:42 most cases, that will tell you. But if
20:44 you're in South or eastern South America
20:46 and you find a bumpy frog with glands
20:49 behind its eyes, you might want to check
20:51 and see if it has teeth or if it lays
20:53 eggs in a chain. Though whether or not
20:55 it pees on you might work in a pinch.
20:57 The remaining six families fall into two
20:59 clades, each with three families, but
21:01 one contains the Lake Tittikaka frog.
21:03 And given that I too used to live in the
21:06 middle of Lake Tittikaka, I'm going to
21:07 start with them. especially considering
21:09 that I only recently discovered that
21:12 there is a second species of large
21:14 aquatic frogs related to them that also
21:16 lives in the Andes. We covered them on
21:18 our most recent 10 animals I didn't know
21:21 existed video. Well, it turns out that I
21:23 could have made at least six whole
21:27 videos for that series just featuring
21:30 frogs from this one family, Telma
21:33 Tobiad. It only has one genus, but over
21:36 60 known species. All found in the
21:38 highlands of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia,
21:40 Argentina, and Chile. Though not all are
21:42 as fully aquatic as the two species I
21:44 knew about before I started digging into
21:46 the close relatives of toads. And the
21:49 two that I knew were by far the largest
21:51 species in the family. In general, they
21:52 tend to be similar in shape to other
21:56 highly aquatic frogs, but with a very
21:58 round snout and silly eyes that hearken
22:00 to their relatives, the budgets frogs.
22:02 And some of the most aquatic members of
22:04 the group tend to have sharpi skin folds
22:06 to maximize surface area for cutaneous
22:08 respiration. Their two closest relatives
22:10 appear to be the four genera in the family
22:12 family
22:15 and the two remarkable genre in the
22:17 family rhinodermatay. I'll start with
22:20 the rhinodermatay because they are so
22:22 crazy though much less remarkable if
22:24 you're a cichlid. In fairness there is
22:26 some debate about the placement of this
22:29 family. It may not be a close relative
22:31 to toads or even tree frogs. And there
22:33 are only three species and two general.
22:35 Some don't look that remarkable. Just a
22:38 dark colored frog with like a starscape
22:41 of yellow coloration, a rounded nose,
22:43 and big brown eyes that are a bit
22:45 farther forward than is typical of
22:47 frogs. But the other genus has a very
22:49 distinctive look with the pointy nose of
22:52 a purple frog on a more proportionately
22:55 sized green body, but an even stranger
22:57 reproductive biology. Let's put it this
23:00 way. If you find a pointy-nosed South
23:03 American frog with a mouthful of his own
23:06 babies, you'll know what you have.
23:09 Assuming that these crazy frogs are
23:10 actually part of the tree frog and
23:13 toadclade, their closest relatives
23:16 appear to be the four genera in the
23:18 family betrakilade
23:20 of southern South America, which are
23:23 pretty but relatively unremarkable
23:25 looking frogs. With only a dozen
23:28 species, you're unlikely to ever see
23:30 one. But this is another one where you
23:31 will probably have an easier time
23:34 identifying the exact species you have
23:36 than something specific about the family
23:38 as a whole. But if you find yourself in
23:41 the southernmost part of South America
23:43 and you find a pretty generic looking
23:45 frog, there is a decent chance that this
23:47 is what you have. The final three
23:49 families in this cate are all more
23:51 closely related to one another than they
23:53 are to anything else. And they're also
23:55 pretty generic looking frogs for the
23:56 most part. All three of these families
23:59 are found in Brazil, though at least one
24:01 gets a bit into Argentina and Chile as
24:03 well. No respect for borders. The one
24:05 most distantly related to the other two
24:08 being the three genera in the family
24:11 cycllo rampid, which are kind of lumpy
24:12 looking little ground frogs from
24:14 southern Brazil. The other two being the
24:18 three genera in the family also, which
24:21 is found in Argentina, Chile, and
24:23 southern Brazil. and the four genera in
24:25 the family hyote of Brazil and
24:27 Argentina. Some of them don't vocalize
24:29 making them rather unique in at least
24:31 that one way. So those are the more
24:34 toadlooking of the families more closely
24:36 related to toads than highlands. But the
24:37 three families in this cate more closely
24:41 related to well this cate than to toads
24:43 really give credence to the idea that
24:46 toads might be tree frogs because
24:48 they're pretty clearly tree frogs or at
24:52 least they look and live like tree frogs
24:54 even if they're transparent. That said,
24:57 it's almost certainly convergence upon
25:00 the tree frog form. The out group of the
25:02 three families are not very tree frog
25:04 like at all. That would be the 13 genera
25:07 in the family leptoductil, the skinny
25:09 toad frogs of Mexico through South
25:11 America. If you haven't noticed, this
25:13 whole cate appears to be a South
25:15 American cate with a few groups making
25:17 their way out of South America now that
25:19 South America is connected to North
25:21 America. These guys are a pretty diverse
25:23 family in terms of basic morphology, but
25:25 they do seem to generally have skinny
25:27 toes and many of them produce bubble
25:30 nests where the eggs hatch and often
25:31 where the tadpoles remain without
25:33 feeding until they metamorphos into
25:35 froglets and they don't look like tree
25:37 frogs. Their closest relatives on the
25:40 other hand totally look like tree frogs.
25:42 Those are the families aloprenaday the
25:45 single genus of tukit hill frogs and
25:48 centro lineday the 13 genera of glass
25:50 frogs and I'm going to start with the
25:52 glass frogs because they are shockingly
25:56 diverse and give us some context for how
25:57 to identify their closest relatives.
25:59 These guys are found in central and
26:01 south america in heavily forested
26:04 locations when they're awake. When
26:06 viewed from above, they appear largely
26:09 green, though their bellies are pretty
26:11 darn transparent. You can get a pretty
26:13 good look at their internal anatomy from
26:15 below. And while they sleep, most of
26:17 their blood concentrates in their
26:19 livers, increasing further the degree to
26:21 which they are transparent. So, getting
26:22 a good look at their internal organs
26:25 without harming the frog in any way is a
26:28 good way to identify these frogs. But it
26:29 isn't the only thing that distinguishes
26:31 them. They also have very distinctive
26:33 faces, very round with very forward-
26:35 facing eyes with distinctive pupils and
26:38 toe pads. The bones in the tips of the
26:41 toes are even T-shaped, and this is
26:42 somewhat reflected in the shape of the
26:44 pads themselves. Because of their
26:46 transparent bellies, it is possible to
26:48 see if a female is full of eggs, as was
26:50 the one that we found in the Peruvian
26:52 Amazon. And when they lay those eggs,
26:54 they lay them on the bottom of leaves,
26:56 so the eggs can hide in much the same
26:58 way that the frogs do. Now take
26:59 everything that you know about glass
27:02 frogs and make them not as transparent
27:05 and not green. Have them lay tons of
27:07 eggs in the water instead of relatively
27:09 few on a leaf. Put them in northeastern
27:12 South America and boom toit hill frogs
27:14 the closest relatives of the glass
27:16 frogs. Though before molecular
27:18 phoggenetic analysis was done on this
27:21 group, they were considered to be toads
27:24 for a while, which probably reflects how
27:26 many morphological similarities are
27:28 conserved across this cate. Like glass
27:31 frogs, they look a lot like tree frogs,
27:34 but the T-shaped terminal flanges, the
27:36 last bone on the toe, and the shape of
27:38 the toe pads set them apart from the
27:40 highlight tree frogs. So the question
27:43 is, from a phlogenetic standpoint,
27:44 what are we going to consider a tree
27:46 frog? I'm assuming that the highlands
27:49 are tree frogs. If the hemifracted are
27:50 also tree frogs, then everything we've
27:52 discussed today would have to be a tree
27:54 frog. I would have no problem with that.
27:56 But they don't have to be. If they're
27:58 not, but the glass frogs and the
28:00 toucatill frogs are tree frogs, then
28:03 everything but the hemifacts would have
28:04 to be tree frogs. I guess what I'm
28:07 saying is that we only have two options
28:09 when it comes to toads. If tree frogs
28:11 are going to be a cate, either the
28:15 hilids are the only tree frogs or toads
28:17 are tree frogs, too. What do you think?
28:20 And should we make a film about all of
28:22 the amphibians this year or should we do
28:24 another group like sharks, spiders, or
28:25 something else? I'd love to know what
28:27 you think. As always, like and
28:29 subscribe, and we hope to see you real
28:31 soon. Oh, are you going to jump on my
28:34 face? Sorry I woke you. Please don't
28:37 jump on my face.
28:39 But you don't like facing the lights.
28:40 Nobody likes I've kind of wondered how
28:44 much the raccoon didn't like the lights.
28:45 >> I feel like that was part of the equation.
28:46 equation.
28:50 >> So if there was a species of bird that
28:52 loved livers. >> Yeah.
28:53 >> Yeah.
28:56 >> This would not be a good camouflage.
28:58 >> Unless I mean I I guess not. You know,
29:00 it's going by other frogs. It's like who
29:02 knows if they got a liver.
29:05 >> Wait a second.
29:08 I know for a fact they have a liver.
29:09 >> I don't have a liver. I can see your
