BRAZIL’S FAUNA
(Page prepared by a nature’s observer)

Frogs and Toads (Order Anura)

Introduction

   Amphibian comes from the Greek word Anfibia, meaning "that live in both". The amphibians represent a class of the vertebrates, and the first known ones are from 280 million years ago.
At the beginning they had structure near to the fishes and through million of years they started living water and becoming for the terrestrial environment, adapting to this new environment with the emerging of members and lungs, progressively changing the circulatory system
The class AMPHIBIA with around 4 thousand species is divided in three orders: Anura; Caudata or Lacertiforme and Gymnophiona.

   Order Anura
   It is characterized by the presence of two pairs of paws adapted to the locomotion by jumps and no tail in the adults. Ex.: frogs, toads, tree frogs. There are about 4.500 described and known species, with predominant tropical distribution.
The anures have from  86 mm of dimension in Psyllophry didactila from Rio de Janeiro, BR, up 32 in Rana goliath from Cameroon, AFR.

   Order Caudata or Lacertiforme
    It is characterized by having two couples of paws in the adult phase with developed tail. There are about 500 species, with distribution in septentrional and temperate zones. Ex.: salamanders.
They have from 4 cm in Dermognathus wright, small salamander of the USA to 155 cm in Megalobatrachus japonicus, giant salamander from Japan.

   Order Gymnophiona
    It is characterized for not having paws and tail; vermiform body, and all of them have aquatic or subterranean habits, with tropical or meridian distribution. There are about 200 species.
In Brazil there are around 600 anure species, one specie caudata and 20 cecílias.

   ORDER ANURA
   This work just contains the order anura, the ones that are vulgar called frogs, toads, tree-frogs, and has as finality providing help for the students of the Brazilian anurefauna, and also helping the nature observer knowing a little about these animals.
As basis in the external aspect, population knows three kinds of anures:
- toads: having slow locomotion, wrinkles and terrestrial acts;
- frogs: with aquatic habits and smooth skin;
- tree-frogs: having suckers in the hand and feet fingers..

    There are 776 anurans' species in Brazil, 489 endemic ones and 110 threatened. These are the families: Brachycephalidae; Dendrobatidae; Bufonidae; Centrolenidae; Hylidae; Leptodactylidae; Pipidae; Ranidae  e família Pseudidae.

    The complete list of all Brazilian anures species can be acessed in Sociedade Brasileira de Herpetologia site: www.sbherpetologia.org.br/checklist/anfibios.htm