---
title: "What the sources say about the Surinam Toad | AnimalTracks.wiki"
description: "51 claims from the Surinam Toad profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it."
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# What the sources say about the Surinam Toad (*Pipa pipa*)

> 51 claims from the Surinam Toad profile, each beside the words of the source that backs it. A "..." marks a cut in a quote and [brackets] an insertion.

Profile: [Surinam Toad](https://animaltracks.wiki/animals/surinam-toad/)

## Surinam Toad. San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/surinam-toad

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Muddy-bottomed rivers, ponds, swamps, and flooded forest across Amazonian South America and Trinidad | perfectly camouflaged to live an aquatic life on muddy river bottoms in rainforest and flooded forest areas in South America (note: Trinidad comes from usgs-nas-surinam-toad's range list and adw-surinam-toad's 'inhabits the eastern region of South America, and Trinidad'; ponds and swamps from adw-surinam-toad 'living in murky ponds and swamps'; Amazonian from suction-2017 'an Amazonian frog that can catch fish') |
| Mostly crustaceans, small fish, worms, and other invertebrates | eats mostly crustaceans, small fish, worms, and other invertebrates |
| Subcutaneous honeycomb egg incubation and whole-trunk suction feeding | her skin grows up and around the eggs, forming a honeycomb structure of pockets (note: whole-trunk suction feeding is claimed separately from suction-2017 below) |
| The flat, leaf-like toad that carries its developing young inside honeycomb pockets on the mother's back | you'd think it was a leaf or a rock, and that's the idea! Its body is flat ... forming a honeycomb structure of pockets ... continuing to develop under her skin |
| The Surinam toad can live up to 8 years | Up to 8 years |
| Its body is flat, its head is a triangle | Its body is flat, its head is triangular |
| its mottled brown, tan, or olive skin makes it look like a lump of leaf litter rather than living wildlife | The toad's skin is pointy, rough, and colored a mottled brown, tan, or olive ... It looks like a lump of leaf litter rather than living wildlife! |
| It measures 10 to 20 centimeters long | can measure between 4 and 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) long |
| weighs 100 to 160 grams | Weight: 3.5 to 5.6 ounces (100 to 160 grams) |
| It hunts by ambush, lying in wait until a fish, worm, or crustacean passes, then lunging forward to eat it in one gulp | an ambush hunter, lying patiently in wait for unsuspecting prey to pass by. The toad eats mostly crustaceans, small fish, worms ... it lunges forward and eats its prey in one gulp |
| With no teeth and no tongue, it relies on its large mouth to swallow food whole | The toad does not have teeth or a tongue, so its large mouth helps it swallow food whole |
| It senses movement through its star-tipped front fingers | When the Surinam toad senses movement with its star-tipped fingers |
| Reproduction starts with an underwater courtship: the male clicks to call a female | Males call to the females by making a clicking sound underwater |
| she releases 60 to 100 eggs, which he fertilizes and presses onto her back | A willing female releases 60 to 100 eggs, and the male fertilizes them and pushes the eggs onto her back, where they stick to her skin |
| Over the next few days, her skin grows up around the eggs until a honeycomb of pockets encloses them completely | During the next few days, her skin grows up and around the eggs, forming a honeycomb structure of pockets, and eventually encloses them completely |
| After three to four months, the toadlets squirm free, and their mother then sheds her skin | the young ride on her back for three to four months ... the fully formed toadlets push and squirm to loosen the female's skin ... The mother then sheds her skin |
| They push and squirm to loosen her skin until the pockets on her back open, showing each toadlet's snout and waving feet | the fully formed toadlets push and squirm to loosen the female's skin; the pockets on her back open up to reveal the snouts and waving feet of the toadlets |
| The young then pop out of their holes and head for the surface to breathe | they pop out of their holes and head for the water's surface to breathe |
| they can start snapping at food straight away | The little toads can start snapping at food right away |
| Their mother sheds her skin afterward, ready for the next breeding season | The mother then sheds her skin, ready for the next breeding season |
| Because that is its disguise. Lying motionless in the water, it can pass for a leaf or a rock | Motionless in the water, you'd think it was a leaf or a rock, and that's the idea! |
| down to the rough, pointy skin and the nostrils set at the end of two narrow tubes on its snout | its nostrils are at the end of two narrow tubes on its snout. The toad's skin is pointy, rough |
| It looks so little like a meal that predators may pass it by | it doesn't look much like a meal, so predators may pass it by |
| The Toad That Looks Like Leaf Litter | It looks like a lump of leaf litter rather than living wildlife! |
| Eggs That Hatch Inside Her Skin | Newly hatched Surinam toads develop under the skin of their mother's back |

## Pipa pipa. Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan, 1999.

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Pipa_pipa/

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Each finger ends in a four-lobed, star-shaped organ, one of the traits that distinguish this species from others | forelimbs are short with webless digits that each end in a star-shaped organ. These quadripartite fingertips are one of the characteristics that distinguish Pipa pipa from other species. |
| then grips her from above | Males grasps the female from above and around the waist in inguinal amplexus |
| There is no tadpole stage: the young develop inside those pockets and emerge as miniature adults | there is no larval stage. The female carries the eggs in a honeycomb structure on her back until they complete development and emerge as miniature adults |

## Pipa pipa (Linnaeus, 1758). USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database, 2013.

https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/FactSheet.aspx?speciesID=2728

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| spends its life on the muddy bottoms of rivers, ponds, and flooded forest across Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and Trinidad and Tobago | Native Range: South America: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela |

## Cundall, Fernandez & Irish (2017). The suction mechanism of the pipid frog, Pipa pipa (Linnaeus, 1758). Journal of Morphology.

https://doi.org/10.1002/jmor.20707

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| A Whole Trunk Built for Suction | the urostyle and sacral vertebra are protracted and slide forward on the pelvic girdle, thereby elongating the entire trunk |
| Most suction-feeding, water-dwelling vertebrates create suction by rapidly enlarging the mouth and pharynx, powered by muscles that pull back the hyoid and the gill-arch bones behind it | Most suction-feeding, aquatic vertebrates create suction by rapidly enlarging the oral cavity and pharynx. Forceful enlargement of the pharynx is powered by longitudinal muscles that retract skeletal elements of the hyoid, more caudal branchial arches |
| Pipa pipa lacks that arrangement | This arrangement was thought to characterize all suction-feeding vertebrates. However, it does not exist in the permanently aquatic, tongueless Pipa pipa |
| Its hyoid is not attached to the skull | the hyoid apparatus is not connected to the skull |
| the main muscle that pulls it arises from the thigh bone rather than the shoulder | The major retractor of the hyoid apparatus arises not from the pectoral girdle but from the femur |
| As the toad feeds, that pull combines with the lower spine sliding forward on the hips | Retraction of the hyoid is coupled with expansion of the anterior trunk, which occurs when the hypertrophied ventral pectoral elements are depressed and the urostyle and sacral vertebra are protracted and slide forward on the pelvic girdle |
| its mouth and throat can expand to a volume potentially equal to the toad's entire resting body | expand the buccopharyngeal cavity to a volume potentially equal to that of the entire resting body of the frog |
| Researchers think Pipa may be the only group of four-limbed animals that enlarges its whole trunk to feed this way | Pipa may be the only tetrapod vertebrate clade that enlarges its entire trunk during suction-feeding |
| It feeds by suction | fundamental features of tetrapod body design are altered to allow P. pipa to suction-feed |
| In most suction feeders, muscles pull back the hyoid and the gill arches to widen the throat, an arrangement once thought to hold for every suction-feeding vertebrate | Most suction-feeding, aquatic vertebrates create suction by rapidly enlarging the oral cavity and pharynx. Forceful enlargement of the pharynx is powered by longitudinal muscles that retract skeletal elements of the hyoid, more caudal branchial arches, and, in many fish, the pectoral girdle. This arrangement was thought to characterize all suction-feeding vertebrates |
| The Surinam toad's hyoid sits inside its shoulder girdle instead, its main retractor muscle arises from the thigh bone, and pulling it back also expands the front of the toad's trunk | the hyoid apparatus is not connected to the skull and is enclosed by the pectoral girdle. The major retractor of the hyoid apparatus arises not from the pectoral girdle but from the femur ... Retraction of the hyoid is coupled with expansion of the anterior trunk |

## Meredith et al. (2026). A somatosensory fovea in the fingertips of the Surinam toad. Journal of Comparative Physiology A.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-026-01838-w

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| Fingertips Like a Star-Nosed Mole's Snout | somatosensory foveae-specialized mechanoreceptive organs analogous to the tactile fovea of the star-nosed mole |
| A 2026 study counted 128 tiny lobules across each toad's fingertips | SEM reveals a progressive quadrification yielding 128 terminal lobules per frog (note: 128 is per frog, across all its fingertips, as the abstract says; 2026 is the paper's year) |
| covered in dome-shaped bumps at nearly four times the density found on the rest of the finger | bearing dome-shaped papillae at 142 ± 18/mm 2 -nearly fourfold the density on adjacent digit shaft skin |
| High-speed video showed the toads starting to feed before a fish touched their fingers, which suggests they sense the water it disturbs from about 5 millimeters away | High-speed behavioral recordings under visible light, infrared, and cobalt-blocked lateral line conditions demonstrate that frogs initiate suction feeding before prey fish contact the digits, indicating detection of hydrodynamic disturbances at short range (~ 5 mm) |
| A magnified fingertip in the brain | the digit tips are somatotopically represented and disproportionately magnified |
| The Surinam toad's fingertip lobes take up 34% of the forelimb's map in its brain, though they cover only 8% of the forelimb's surface | occupying 34% of the forelimb representation despite comprising only 8% of forelimb surface area (magnification factor: 4.3×) |
| Their lobule tips have the lowest touch threshold measured on the forelimb, a median of 0.07 millinewtons | Distal lobule tips have the lowest mechanical thresholds on the forelimb (median 0.07 mN) |
| some of the nerve fibres serving them also respond to water currents | low-threshold, predominantly rapidly adapting mechanoreceptive afferents with small receptive fields confined to the lobules, some also responsive to water current stimulation |
| In the brain, the fingertips are magnified 4.3 times relative to their share of the forelimb's surface | occupying 34% of the forelimb representation despite comprising only 8% of forelimb surface area (magnification factor: 4.3×) |
| The study's authors liken them to the touch organ on the star-nosed mole's snout | These results establish the digit tip lobes of Pipa pipa as somatosensory foveae-specialized mechanoreceptive organs analogous to the tactile fovea of the star-nosed mole |

## Pipa pipa. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2023: e.T58163A85900348.

https://doi.org/10.2305/iucn.uk.2023-1.rlts.t58163a85900348.en

| The page says | The source says |
| :--- | :--- |
| the IUCN lists it as a species of Least Concern | IUCN Red List category: Least Concern (LC). |