blacksmith frog

The South American nest-building hylid, Hyla faber, has a long, sharp spine on the thumb with which males wound each other when wrestling. The small Central American Dendrobates pumilio calls from the leaves of herbaceous plants. Intrusion into a territory of one calling male by another results in a wrestling…

Some, such as the blacksmith frog (Hyla faber), build mud nests at the water’s edge; others lay their eggs in the water that collects between the leaves of plants. (See rainforest ecosystem sidebar, “Life in a Bromeliad Pool.”) In the marsupial frogs (Gastrotheca) of South America, the young hatch…