Dec 18, 2011: These pretty creatures made both of us think one thought: “How THIS can survive?” How can survive in nature something resembling not an animal but rather a piece of map (especially the one on the right — for me it looks like a Lena river delta?

I found that in nature _this_ does not like to move a lot: most of time it lies motionless, buried in the ground and waiting for some food to come close. It eats everything it can fit into it's big mouth. Sometimes it can even consume something as big as itself. Insects, rodents, other frogs — everything is nice and tasty. In case if instead of food the frog is approached by a bigger enemy, it won't try to run away, it will try to frighten and to bite the enemy. So, somehow, _this_ survives…

Due to such features, in captivity horned frogs can easily gain too much fat (but, according to all frog-breeding forums, too much fat would cause problems with eyes due to cholesterol deposits appearing in cornea, so it looks like these ones are quite normal). I can assume the elegant small froggies in Google search, with their bottoms less than their head, are very young ones. Adult pacman-frogs can live 6-7 years (in captivity up to 10 years) and get 15 cm large (15 cm long to be more exact… or maybe “15 cm diameter” will be even more exact?). Obviously, the head of an adult frog cannot grow, thus, we get this wonderful form.

UPD: And here is another creature with analogous way of lie: big mouth, ambushing the prey. Steller`s sculpin: wait for food to come (the bigger — the better), huddle it into the mouth somehow and then hide and digest, digest, digest.lenzoo-20111218

species Argentine horned frog, or argentine wide-mouthed frog or pacman frog Ceratophrys ornata