Toad Babies Emerging from Mother’s Skin (video)

In another example that Mother Nature has a pretty messed up personality, here’s a skin-crawling video of a Surinam Toad giving birth. Well, of course, it’s an amphibian, so it doesn’t give birth as such… Over to Wikipipedia to explain things:

Surinam toads are most well-known for their remarkable reproductive habits. The partners rise off of the floor while in amplexus and flip through the water in arcs. During each arc, the female releases 3-10 eggs, which get embedded in the skin on her back by the male’s movements. After implantation the eggs sink into the skin and form pockets over a period of several days, eventually taking on the appearance of an irregular honeycomb. The larvae develop through the tadpole stage inside these pockets, eventually emerging from the mother’s back as fully developed toads

Freaky!

5 comments March 16th, 2008