I know you’ve been wondering about frogs lately. Especially about the biggest frogs in the world. They’re called Goliath frogs and they are huge. Like seven pounds huge! Imagine a frog the size of a human baby. Horror movie stuff.
These massive frogs, however, are not monsters at all. In fact, they are some of the best parents on the planet.
Some researchers were looking into the diet of Goliath tadpoles. That’s a very specific inquiry. But as often happens in research, they were led down a different path.
They saw that Goliath frog parents built elaborate nests for their little ones. This, alone, is not very interesting because many animals build nests for their babies. These frogs, though, demonstrated SUPER STRENGTH! CrossFit Games level strength!!
Researchers observed these frogs moving rocks around that weighed as much as half the entire body weight of the frog. That would be like a 150 pound person lugging 75 pound rocks around all day.
Here’s another thing: the nests were always free of debris. Squeaky clean. This means that the Goliath frogs were not just master builders, but great housekeepers as well.
It takes a lot of energy to build these nests and maintain them. But if it leads to a higher survival rate of the babies, it’s totally worth it.