The Amazon Milk Frog (Trachycephalus resinifictrix) is an arboreal amphibian in the Hylidae family. It is also called the Mission Golden-Eyed Tree Frog or the Blue Milk Frog.
The Amazon Milk Frog is light-grey with brown or black bands. As it ages, it develops bumpy skin. It looks like milk has been spilled on it, but the name actually refers to the milky fluid that it excretes when it is stressed. It has large toe pads to cling to branches of trees.
Amazon Milk Frog
It grows to 6-10 centimetres (2-4 inches) in length.
The Amazon Milk Frog is native to the Amazon rain forest in South America, in countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.
It likes areas with high humidity and high rainfall. It is arboreal, living in trees, and it rarely comes to the ground.
It is nocturnal, active mainly at night. It eats insects, spiders, and small amphibians.
The female lays up to 2,000 eggs, which hatch after one day. The eggs hatch into tadpoles, which undergo metamorphosis, which means that they change from tadpoles into frogs. They lose the tail and grow legs. They also lose their gills (to breathe underwater) and grow lungs (to breathe air on land).
The Amazon Milk Frog lives, on average, for 25 years in the wild.
Amazon Milk Frog
[Location of photographs: Paris Jardin du Plantes Zoo, France]
Photographer: Martina Nicolls
Martina Nicolls: SIMILAR BUT DIFFERENT IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
