Abstract
MR. S. W. FROST had a bullfrog of 200 gm. under observation in a cage provided with a small pond (“The Food ofRana catesbeiana, Shaw”, Copeia, No. 1; 1935). Its feeding capacity is amazing. During the summer it ate more than four hundred and twenty-seven grams of food more than twice its own weight in less than five months. The artificial conditions may, however, have caused it to eat more than it would have done in natural surroundings. The food eaten included 56 amphibians (frogs, toads and salamanders), 63 insects (beetles, moths, caterpillars, grasshoppers and cicadas), slugs {Limax maximus) and birds. As an example, on June 23 it ate 2 Promethia moths and 8 other insects; June 24, 1 Promethia moth, 3 other insects and 1 nestling sparrow (18 gm.); June 25, 1 frog (6 gm.); June 16, 2 frogs (13-5 gm.). It has a curious method of accepting its food, preferring to take it under water; “sometimes it snatches a morsel of food on the bank of a stream or pond, but invariably jumps into the water and submerges it to swallow”.
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Food of the Bullfrog. Nature 136, 983 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136983d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136983d0