Why is camouflage important for frogs?

Frogs live in swamps, forests, and other places. These places are filled with the prey they need as food. More notably, these places also abound in predators which need frogs as food! Frogs have several enemies- snakes, otters, herons, badgers, hedgehogs and many other animals. Frogs therefore rely on the art of camouflage to avoid getting spotted by their enemies. Some blend with their backgrounds, while others even change colours to match their backgrounds!

The aim of camouflage is to break up the typical frog shape, so that the frog cannot be distinguished from its surroundings. That is why, very often, frogs are a mixture of browns and greens that make it difficult for a predator to determine where the frog ends, and the surroundings begin!

 Tree frogs are usually light green so as to blend in with the leaves, while a tree frog from Brazil looks like a splash of bird droppings on a stone! The Asian horned toad’s colour matches that of the dried leaves and leaf litter on the forest floor, while it is practically impossible to see an African square marked toad if it remains perfectly still against a tree bark! In short, camouflage is important to a frog as it allows the amphibian to melt into the background and become practically invisible when danger approaches.