| Frogs and toads, as are other amphibious creatures, are used with huge popularity in the folklore of different nationalities. People are afraid to kill the frogs and toads, as they consider that they are connected by some mystical image with the other world. In the Middle Ages, the toad and frog were the major attributes of witches and sorcerers: they were used in medical, love and harmful magic, but at the same time, people considered that the frog brings fortune with it into the house. “Swallow a frog to cure cancer” is advised in Midland (Great Britain).
In Wales, the old witches' secret for getting rid of warts is: prick a frog on the stick, and rub the frog against the wart. When the frog dies the wart will disappear. In ancient Russia it was believed that washing with frog roe reduces freckles.
The unique abilities of the amphibians always attracted the attention of people. They are divided into three families: toads, tree frogs and frogs. Toads have no teeth, but the parotid glands are well developed behind the eyes and the skin in toads is grumous. The size of toads is less than the size of frogs. But, nevertheless, the size of the reed or sea toad, inhabitants of the tropical areas of South America and Australia, one owner of which is Swede Hakan Forsber, who had one which was 53.9 cm with extended limbs and a weight of 2.65 kg in 1991. The smallest toad is an African subspecies, having a length of only 2.4 cm. Tree frogs are the smallest in these three families. The skin of the tree frogs is smooth and they have expanded webs on the fingers which help the tree frogs in climbing up. The frogs, known to all of us, have teeth on the upper jaw, a smooth or slight bumpiness of the skin with expressed swimming palama on the hind limbs. The truth is that the family of frogs with respect to size has wide spread: the smallest amphibian on the globe is a frog, living in Cuba with a length of 8.5-12 mm and the biggest is a goliath frog, captured in Cameroon, which had a total length of 87.63cm with expanded limbs and weighed 3.66 kg. These three families are so various, that at times it surprises, when you are acquainted with their life in different corners of the globe. |
