Mozambique ridged frog facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Mozambique ridged frog |
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| Conservation status | |
Scientific classification  |
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| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Amphibia |
| Order: | Anura |
| Family: | Ptychadenidae |
| Genus: | Ptychadena |
| Species: |
P. mossambica
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| Binomial name | |
| Ptychadena mossambica (Peters, 1854)
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| Synonyms | |
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Rana Mossambica Peters, 1854 |
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The Mozambique ridged frog (Ptychadena mossambica) is a type of frog found in parts of Africa. It's also known by other names like the broad-banded grass frog or Mozambique grass frog. These frogs are great swimmers and can jump very far. They can also crawl easily through thick plants. Their strong back legs help them leap up to three meters (about 10 feet) in one jump!
Contents
About the Mozambique Ridged Frog
This frog was first found and named after Mozambique, a country in southeastern Africa.
Conservation Status
Good news! The Mozambique ridged frog is currently not threatened. This means there are plenty of them in the wild.
What Does the Mozambique Ridged Frog Look Like?
These frogs are usually about 4.5 to 5 centimeters (about 1.8 to 2 inches) long. The biggest ones can be up to 5.3 centimeters.
Body and Color
- They can be dark grey-brown, chocolate brown, or even green on top.
- A wide, creamy or orange-brown stripe runs down their back from their nose to their tail end. This stripe has dark spots along its edges.
- Their snout (nose area) is not lighter than the rest of their body.
- They have at least six skin ridges on their back. These ridges are creamy-white and stop at the hump on their back.
- You might see dark brown spots on their back between the main stripe and the skin ridges. These spots are smaller than their eyes.
Face and Underside
- Their eardrum (called the tympanum) is easy to see and is a bit smaller than their eye.
- Their belly is creamy-white. Sometimes, their throat and the back part of their belly have grey spots.
- Their thighs are often pale yellow.
- Their skin feels smooth.
Legs
- Their front legs are quite short.
- Their back legs are strong. Their foot is shorter than their lower leg (tibia).
- Sometimes, there's a pale line on the top of their lower leg.
- The back of their thighs is dark grey with yellow spots that can form wavy lines.
- They have some webbing between their toes, but not a lot.
Where Do Mozambique Ridged Frogs Live?
You can find these frogs in many countries in southern and eastern Africa. This includes South Africa, Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
They like places with water, such as:
- Flooded grassy areas.
- Around temporary or permanent marshes and ponds.
- Near streams in different types of bushveld (a type of savanna).
They live in dry savanna, thicket, and tropical grasslands, but also in moist savannas and dry forests. They can even be found in swamps, temporary lakes, farmland, pastures, and water storage areas. They prefer altitudes from about 200 to 1,200 meters (about 650 to 3,900 feet).
Habits of the Mozambique Ridged Frog
When the water pools where they live dry up, these frogs often hide in deep cracks in the drying mud. They might stay there during the dry winter months. They become active again after the first spring rains. If they feel disturbed, they will jump away from the water into plants, hide underneath them, and disappear.
Reproduction and Life Cycle
Female Mozambique ridged frogs can lay many eggs. For example, one female in Kruger National Park laid 315 eggs.
- Each egg is tiny, about 1.2 millimeters (less than 0.05 inches) wide.
- A clear jelly surrounds each egg, making it about 3 millimeters (about 0.12 inches) wide.
- The eggs sink to the bottom of the water.
- One side of the egg is dark grey-brown, and the other side is creamy yellow-white.
- These eggs develop into tadpoles very quickly.
What Does Their Call Sound Like?
The male Mozambique ridged frogs make a loud, harsh, nasal sound. It sounds like "kwe-kwe" or "wah-wah-wah" clucks. They repeat this sound about two times per second, much like the quacking of an Egyptian Goose.
Males usually call from hidden spots in grass clumps at the edge of water. This could be by marshes, pans (dry lake beds), or even a few meters away from the water. If there isn't much plant cover after winter, males might call from completely open spots right by the water's edge. They call most often after dark, usually until about midnight.
 | May Edward Chinn |
 | Rebecca Cole |
 | Alexa Canady |
 | Dorothy Lavinia Brown |
