Marbled milk frog

Scientific name: Phrynohyas venulosa

Country: Venezuela, Peru, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Guatemala, Mexico.

Continent: North America, South America

Diet: Insects, especially flies, crickets, beetles and grasshoppers. They are insectivores.

Food & feeding: Carnivore

Habitats: Tropical rainforest, tropical dry forest

Conservation status: Not Threatened

Relatives: Thai tree frog, red-eyed tree frog

Description: This is a tree frog with warty grey skin. Like other tree frogs it has enlarged pads on the end of its fingers and toes that help it stick to leaves and branches. The warty skin contains many glands that release a special mucus.

Lifestyle: These frogs are primarily nocturnal and the marbled milk frogs at Bristol Zoo Gardens can be found in Twilight World- the nocturnal house. At night in urban areas, individuals are sometimes seen clinging to the walls of buildings where they prey on insects that are attracted to electric light. During the dry season, these frogs retreat into holes in trees where they cocoon themselves in mucus and wait for wetter conditions to return.

Family & friends: Large numbers of these frogs congregate in pools for breeding. For the rest of the year they are solitary.

Keeping in touch: When the summer rain arrives, the males arrive at breeding pools and call the females in order to attract them to breed.

Growing up: A single pair of frogs may deposit several 'rafts' of eggs on the surface of the water in one evening. The tadpoles complete their metamorphosis into tiny frogs in approximately 50 days, and can grow to 75 mm.

This species' name is taken from the toxic milky secretions produced from numerous poison glands in the frog's skin. The toxic mucous is used to discourage predators and to line the interiors of tree cavities used to refuge in during the dry season. Some people are sensitive to these secretions, causing them to sneeze when they are near this species.