The Kumbara Night Frog Mates While Doing Handstands
Posted on May 17, 2014
National Geographic reports on a newly discovered species of frog, the Kumbara night frog (Nyctibatrachus kumbara). The frog lives in swamp forests in the Western Ghats in India. The word "kumbara" in the frog's name is a word for potter in the region of western India where the frog was discovered. This name was chosen because the frog covers its eggs in mud with its little fingers to protect them from predators. The frogs also mate while performing handstands. The frog, also called a mud-packing frog, is described here in Zootaxa.
Kotambylu Vasudeva Gururaja, lead author of the paper, is an amphibian expert at the Indian Institute of Science. He shared a couple videos of the frog on YouTube. The video below the frogs performing a handstand while mating. The frogs are initially positioned upright and flip to a handstand position after about ten seconds.
This video shows a male Kumbara night frog covering the eggs with mud: