Atelognathus patagonicus

The Patagonia frog  (Atelognathus patagonicus) is a frog.  It lives in Argentina.

Body
The adult is about 50 mm long from nose to rear end. This frog can have two body types: Aquatic frogs that spend time in the water have folds in their skin and have webbed skin between their toes and an orange bellies. The littoral frogs that spend time on land have less skin and gray bellies. Frogs can change between aquatic and littoral. Scientists think they do this if they eat different foods.

The frogs change body type to aquatic if they live in a pool or lagoon that is there all year. They change body type to littoral if their water dries up.

Food
Scientists think that the frogs eat amphipods in pools of water. These animals have orange chemicals in their bodies that turn the frogs' bellies orange. The littoral frogs eat insects and spiders and ticks that they find on land.

Home
This frog can live in bodies of water with grassy places or even dry places around them. This frog needs bodies of water with rocks on the bottom  and many plants. Scientists saw this frog between 1265 and 1410  meters above sea level.

Scientists have seen this frog inside a protected park: Laguna Blanca National Park.

Young

The tadpoles are gold-brown in color with brown spots. The tadpoles swim in shallow water and eat animals and algae.  Some tadpoles become frogs soon. Other tadpoles stay in the water during winter and become frogs the next spring.

Danger
Scientists from the IUCN say this frog is in very big danger of dying out. One big problem is that people change the places where the frog lives by letting animals drink from the lagoons and eat the plants that the frogs need to live. Fish from other parts of the world also eat this frog and its tadpoles.

Scientists found the virus ranavirus and the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis on dead and sick frogs.

References

Category:Frogs of South America