The Forest Rain Frog (Breviceps sylvestris) is a species of frog in the Microhylidae family. It is endemic to South Africa. Its natural habitats are temperate forests, temperate grassland, and rural gardens. It is threatened by habitat loss.
Forest rain frogs can range in colour from red, orange, yellow, green, and purple. They can also vary in size from a mere 2cm and grow to be about 10cm in body length. The purple frogs are known to contain a defense mechanism consisting of a toxic chemical on their slimy exterior. If contact is made with this toxin the temporary effect of paralysis can occur.
Famous quotes containing the words forest, rain and/or frog:
“Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrow seems always chipper, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, “not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father’s knowledge,” but they do fall, nevertheless.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,—if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Squats on a toad-stool under a tree
A bodiless childfull of life in the gloom,
Crying with frog voice, “What shall I be?
Poor unborn ghost, for my mother killed me
Scarcely alive in her wicked womb.”
—Thomas Lovell Beddoes (1803–1849)