Amphibians

1. Amphibians By Melissa Lau and Diego Rivera

2. What is an Amphibian? • Amphibians are vertebrates . • Vertebrates are creatures with a backbone and an internal skeleton . • Amphibians live part of their life in water and part on land. • species that lay eggs on land start life in a fluid-filled egg, breathing through gills.

3. Amphibians Defense • amphibians are relatively easy prey • have small, slippery bodies which helps escape from predators. • The bright colors distract and confuse predators and help the amphibians escape. • amphibians produce mild skin poisons, and some secretions are toxic enough to kill predators1! • Some amphibians use camouflage to hide themselves from predators.

4. What do they eat? • All adult amphibians are carnivores. • All tadpoles have special scraping mouthparts that are used for feeding on algae • Tadpoles often eat their own fellow tadpoles and can grow to enormous size.

5. Which ones which? • Every amphibian has characteristics that help separate it from other amphibian families. • frogs :water-dwellers with long legs and slimy skin. • toads :short and squat landlubbers with dry, warty skin. • Sirens are long, slender salamanders that look very much like eels. • Mole salamanders are thick-bodied with wide heads.

6. Salamanders  • Salamanders are generally in water all time. Hence why they have such slippery, wet, slimy, skin. • There are many different species of salamanders. Most salamanders are shaped like eels, and have small web feet.

7. Newts • Small gecko looking creators. • have rougher skin than most other salamanders and no noticeable costal grooves • Western newts have brightly colored under parts • Eastern newts have colorful markings on their backs

8. Frogs and Toads • Frogs have long legs, webbed hind feet, pointed toes. • Toads have plump bodies, rounded faces with large glands on the sides of their heads.