What do frogs eat? A list of common food types
Frogs belong to the phylum Chordata, class Amphibia, order Anura, family Ranidae. Adults have no tail, eggs are laid in water, fertilization takes place externally, and they hatch into tadpoles that breathe with gills. After metamorphosis, adults mainly breathe with lungs and also through their skin. They feed mainly on insects and other invertebrates, and are almost all skilled at wiping out forest and farmland pests. Let's take a look below at what frogs eat!
What do frogs eat?
Frogs are omnivorous animals, with plant-based food making up only about 7% of their diet and animal-based food making up about 93%. Their main foods include rice leaf roller, rice stem borer, rice skipper, armyworm, corn borer, cotton pink bollworm, rice caseworm, bean hawkmoth, rice eye butterfly, rice leaf beetle, rice weevil, scarab beetle, ladybug, white-backed planthopper, gray-backed planthopper, rice black stink bug, brown-backed planthopper, rice leafminer, duckweed midge, fruit fly, mosquito and more.
What do tadpoles eat?
Tadpoles are the larvae of amphibians such as frogs, toads, newts and salamanders. Most tadpoles feed by scraping algae with rows of horny teeth in their mouths, but if there happen to be small animal carcasses such as earthworms or beetles in the water, they will also gnaw on them in groups. Some kinds of tadpoles have no horny teeth and instead feed by filtering plankton from the water. The tadpoles of the Eiffinger's tree frog are oophagous, and the mother frog returns regularly to lay eggs to feed the tadpoles. When food is insufficient, larger tadpoles eating smaller tadpoles can also occur.
The frog's hunting process
Frogs love eating small insects and are good at spotting small moving insects. A frog usually lies in a small dirt pit, with its hind legs tucked and kneeling on the ground, its front legs propping it up, its mouth open and face tilted upward, its belly puffing in and out as it waits for something. A mosquito flies over and flashes in front of the frog. The frog suddenly leaps upward, flips out its tongue, and lands on the ground again. The mosquito is gone, and it sits back exactly as before, waiting for the next prey to arrive.
The frog's growth cycle
Frogs are dioecious and fertilize externally. Sperm and egg cells complete fertilization in water. The fertilized eggs hatch into tadpoles. A newly hatched tadpole has a flat, long tail and breathes with the gills on both sides of its head. A tadpole that has grown inner gills looks like a fish. A young frog that has grown four limbs breathes with lungs, and its bare skin assists with breathing. The young frog gradually develops into a frog. The developmental process is fertilized egg → tadpole → young frog → adult frog.