📸 PhotoPhoto: Benjamin Healley · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Southern Gastric-brooding Frog
Rheobatrachus silus (Southern Gastric-brooding Frog · カモノハシガエル)
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 Its body length of 5.4 cm is similar to two Korean 500-won coins lined up side by side (about 5.3 cm) (Comparison).
- 💡 ADW notes under 'Positive Impacts' that its ability to shut down strong stomach acid secretion could help inform medical treatments for gastric ulcers in humans.
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
The Southern Gastric-brooding Frog was a frog that lived in rocky creeks of Australian rainforests, famous for its unique reproduction in which the female swallowed fertilized eggs and brooded her young inside her stomach. It is now classified as Extinct (EX, 2022 assessment) on the IUCN Red List.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
Oval-bodied with females larger than males (females 45–54 mm, males 33–41 mm), it had large eyes protruding from the top of a small, flattened head. Its back was dull gray to slate gray, and its feet were extensively webbed for aquatic life.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
It mainly ate small insects, consuming soft-bodied prey at the water surface and harder prey underwater. While a female swallowed 18–25 fertilized eggs and brooded them in her stomach for 6–7 weeks, substances from the egg jelly and tadpoles switched off stomach acid secretion and the female did not eat at all.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
No direct record connecting this species to Korea has been found.
📚 Sources & References
- • IUCN Red List EX (2022) — https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/19475/78430533
- • IUCN Red List category EX — latest assessment at iucnredlist.org
- • catalogueoflife.org — 4S5X9
- • iucnredlist.org — 78430533
- • wikidata.org — Q2701511
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Rheobatrachus silus.jpg
- • animaldiversity.org — Rheobatrachus silus
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — Jose Carlos Arenas-Monroy · CC0 1.0 (Congeneric silhouette — Rheobatrachus vitellinus)
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.