Page 22 - Amazing Creations Volume One

Amazing Creations 20

Richard Gunther

If you stood in Australia's central desert, felt the intense heat,
looked at the hot, baked soil under your feet, you would hardly
expect this to be a suitable home for frogs?
Wrong.This is where the burrowing frog lives.

This amazing creature lives under the bone-dry soil for YEARS if
need be, protected by a cocoon made of skin, which it makes
for itself.
Just as the pools are drying up after rain, the frog digs its way
backwards into the mud and seals itself in a small chamber which
it makes by pushing outwards with its feet, about 30cm down.
The frog's skin loosens and forms a sealed bag, and the frog's
heart and body slow down so far it seems dead - until it senses rain
again.

This ability to go into suspended animatyion for years in a
hot, dry desert is astounding! *
How did a frog ever come to have these amazing abilities?
This skill is not something it could gradually learn, because one
year with no rain would have wiped every frog out.

The frog who created the frog also gave it the skills and the wisdom.