Pipa pipa

Ge­o­graphic Range

Pipa pipa in­hab­its the east­ern re­gion of South Amer­ica, and Trinidad.

Habi­tat

Pipa pipa are highly aquatic, liv­ing in murky ponds and swamps.

  • Aquatic Biomes
  • lakes and ponds
  • rivers and streams

Phys­i­cal De­scrip­tion

fe­males: 105-171 mm males: 106-154 mm Pipa pipa are wide and greatly flat­tened with tri­an­gu­lar-shaped heads. They are gen­er­ally light brown, with darker brown spots on the back.

Fe­males can be dis­tin­guished from males by a ring-shaped swelling at the cloaca, vis­i­ble only when the an­i­mals are ready to breed.

The an­i­mals have very small black eyes which are lid­less and bead­like.

These frogs have large, flip­per-like hind feet. Their 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.

De­vel­op­ment

Re­pro­duc­tion

Re­pro­duc­tion in Pipa pipa in­cludes di­rect de­vel­op­ment of the young; 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. Mat­ing be­gins when males make a tick­ling call while in the water. Males grasps the fe­male from above and around the waist in in­guinal am­plexus. The fe­male ini­ti­ates ver­ti­cal cir­cu­lar turnovers while they're to­gether. The male clasps the fe­male with his fore­limbs wrapped in front of her hindlimbs, and they raise off the floor of the stream or pond and swim to the sur­face of the water to get air. At the top of the arc, they flip, now float­ing on their backs, and the fe­male re­leases 3-10 eggs which fall onto the male's belly. Com­plet­ing their arc, they flip to their orig­i­nal po­si­tion, bel­lies to the ground. The male now loosens his grip and per­mits the eggs to roll onto her back while he si­mul­ta­ne­ously fer­til­izes them. This spawn­ing rit­ual is re­peated 15-18 times. Roughly 100 eggs are laid and fer­til­ized.

The eggs ad­here only to the fe­male's back, pos­si­bly due to a cloa­cal se­cre­tion. They do not stick to the male's belly nor to other eggs al­ready on the fe­male's back. In the hours after fer­til­iza­tion, the eggs sink into the fe­male's skin. Skin grows around the eggs, which be­come en­closed in a cyst with a horny lid. Dur­ing de­vel­op­ment, the young grow tem­po­rary tails, which are ap­par­ently used in the up­take of oxy­gen. After 12-20 weeks, the young emerge as tail­less flat frogs shaped like their moth­ers, ex­cept that they are only 2 cm in length. They are, how­ever, fully de­vel­oped ex­cept for bi­fur­ca­tion of the lobes on the fin­ger­tips.

The young usu­ally emerge from the fe­male's back at the time of molt­ing, that is, when the mother sheds her skin.

  • Key Reproductive Features
  • gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate)

Lifes­pan/Longevity

Be­hav­ior

In the wild, the an­i­mals space them­selves using calls to com­mu­ni­cate lo­ca­tion and dis­tance. Pipa pipa are usu­ally quiet and still, rest­ing on each other with­out dis­tur­bances. They lie on the bot­tom, re­turn­ing to the sur­face for air gen­er­ally every half hour. They do not leave the water vol­un­tar­ily. Ini­tially the young have trou­ble div­ing and re­main near the sur­face of the water. They can im­me­di­ately begin snap­ping at food. After one month they are ca­pa­ble of swim­ming and div­ing as prac­ticed by adults.

Males use a se­ries of rapid click­ing sounds as a mat­ing call. Un­ready fe­males quiver in order to re­ject the at­tempts by a male to mate.

After re­pro­duc­tion, the male and fe­male sep­a­rate.

The young gen­er­ally emerge from their pouches under their own power, how­ever the mother can exert pres­sure that will force the young to emerge.

In an aquar­ium en­vi­ron­ment, the mother doesn't eat her young even if they come close to her mouth or touch her hands.

Males make sin­gle click­ing sounds dur­ing fights or to chal­lenge ter­ri­tory. In the aquar­ium they were ob­served to charge each other, butt heads, bite, and kick.

Food Habits

Pipa pipa are aquatic om­ni­vores. They eat worms, in­sects, crus­taceans, and small fishes. They lack tongues and use the long, sen­si­tive fin­gers of their fore­limbs to search for food on the bot­toms of ponds. Their fore­limbs also serve to stuff the food into their mouths. Im­ma­ture Pipa eat in­ver­te­brates such as Daph­nia and Tubifex worms.

Eco­nomic Im­por­tance for Hu­mans: Pos­i­tive

There are no ecomonic ben­e­fits other than that they some­times con­sume harm­ful in­sects.

Con­ser­va­tion Sta­tus

Other Com­ments

The fam­ily Pip­i­dae dates back to Cre­ta­ceous (144-66.4 bya). The Suri­nam toad is named after Suri­name, a coun­try in north­ern South Amer­ica.

The fight­ing be­hav­ior of Pipa pipa is sim­i­lar to that of its small African rel­a­tive, Hy­menochirus. Its re­pro­duc­tive be­hav­ior is closely re­lated to that of Rana pipa.

Fight­ing prob­a­bly oc­curs rarely in the wild, where the an­i­mals nor­mally space them­selves out peace­ably by using calls.

Con­trib­u­tors

Kathryn Wandzel (au­thor), Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan-Ann Arbor.

Glossary

Neotropical

living in the southern part of the New World. In other words, Central and South America.

World Map

bilateral symmetry

having body symmetry such that the animal can be divided in one plane into two mirror-image halves. Animals with bilateral symmetry have dorsal and ventral sides, as well as anterior and posterior ends. Synapomorphy of the Bilateria.

ectothermic

animals which must use heat acquired from the environment and behavioral adaptations to regulate body temperature

metamorphosis

A large change in the shape or structure of an animal that happens as the animal grows. In insects, "incomplete metamorphosis" is when young animals are similar to adults and change gradually into the adult form, and "complete metamorphosis" is when there is a profound change between larval and adult forms. Butterflies have complete metamorphosis, grasshoppers have incomplete metamorphosis.

motile

having the capacity to move from one place to another.

native range

the area in which the animal is naturally found, the region in which it is endemic.

Ref­er­ences

En­cy­clo­pe­dia Amer­i­cana In­ter­na­tional Edi­tion. 1996. Grolier Inc. v.26

En­cy­clo­pe­dia Brit­tan­ica Inc. Ready Ref­er­ence. 1995. 15th Edi­tion. Chicago v. 13

Ed. Grz­imek, B. Grz­imek's An­i­mal Life En­cy­clo­pe­dia. 1974. Van No­s­tand Rein­hold Co. New York.

Can­natella, D. and L. Trueb. (1986) "Sys­tem­at­ics, Mor­phol­ogy, and Phy­logeny of Genus Pipa (Anura: Pip­i­dae)" Her­peto­log­ica 42(4): 412-449.

Mat­ti­son, Chris. 1993. Keep­ing and Breed­ing Am­phib­ians. Bland­ford, Lon­don.

Rabb, G. and M. Rabb. (1963) "Ad­di­tional Ob­ser­va­tions on Breed­ing Be­hav­ior of the Suri­nam Toad, Pipa pipa" Copeia (4): 636-642.

Rabb, G. and R. Snedi­gar. (1960) "Obers­va­tions on Breed­ing and De­vel­op­ment of the Suri­nam Toad, Pipa pipa" Copeia (1): 40-44.