Wildlife
Surinam toads have a unique spawning ritual and reproduction method. Following an extraordinary mating dance, where the female lays her eggs on the male's belly, the male then fertilises the eggs and rolls them into pouches on her back. After bypassing the larval stage completely, fully developed froglet miniatures pop out of the holes in the mother's skin. Large flippered feet and greatly flattened bodies make these amphibians well suited to life in South America's murky ponds and swamps.
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Skincare
Surinam toads perform a bizarre skincare routine for their babies!
Imagine if babies were born through the skin on your back - a truly weird suggestion, but this is no April Fool. The surinam toad's method of ensuring maximum survival success for its offspring is exactly that. It's a seemingly bizarre strategy, but the resulting odds are much higher than the normal way of laying eggs.
Pioneering parents
Surinam toad babies pop out of pockets in their mother's skin.
Surinam toad babies pop out of pockets in their mother's skin.
Species range provided by WWF's Wildfinder.
The Surinam toad can be found in a number of locations including: Amazon Rainforest, South America. Find out more about these places and what else lives there.
The following habitats are found across the Surinam toad distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.
Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.
Additional data source: Animal Diversity Web
Least Concern
Population trend: Stable
Year assessed: 2004
Classified by: IUCN 3.1
This article is about the Common Surinam Toad, Pipa pipa. For other species of Surinam toad in the same genus, see Pipa (genus).
The Surinam toad or star-fingered toad (Spanish: aparo, rana comun de celdillas, rana tablacha, sapo chinelo, sapo chola, or sapo de celdas) (Pipa pipa) is a species of frog in the Pipidae family.
It is found in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical swamps, swamps, freshwater marshes, and intermittent freshwater marshes. It is threatened by habitat loss.
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Wildlife wind-ups
It's not only humans that like a good joke, animals play all kinds of tricks on one another in their attempts to gain an advantage.
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Adapted to swimming
Camouflage
Maternal care
Ovoviviparous
Spawning