BiologyCoachOnlineBlog

Last week's #MysteryCreature was Wallace's Flying Frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus).

A flying frog - sometimes referred to as a "gliding frog" - is a frog that has the ability to achieve gliding flight. That is, it can descend at an angle of less than 45° relative to horizontal. [Non-flying frogs descend vertically and only at angles greater than 45-degrees (which is referred to as parachuting)]. Gliding flight evolved as an adaptation to a life high above the ground in trees. Characteristics of the Rhacophoridae include enlarged hands and feet with full webbing between all fingers and toes, lateral skin flaps on the arms and legs, and reduced body weight. All of these characteristics help make the flying frog more aerodynamic. Alfred Russel Wallace - 19th and early 20th century British naturalist, explorer, and biologist - made one of the earliest observations of flying frogs. The species he observed (from whom Wallace's Flying Frog gets its common name) was later described by George Albert Boulenger as Rhacophorus nigropalmatus.