Many animal lovers find frogs to be incredibly cute creatures, but finding one stuck to your window can be pretty alarming.
When frogs do find themselves outside of their comfort zone, they become quite unsettled. So, if you do happen to find a frog inside your home, then you need to take it easy and help the amphibian leave in one piece without suffering from a traumatic experience.
But before you do so, you might decide to take a second and wonder how exactly that frog managed to get up there in the first place.
So, can frogs climb walls? Yes, frogs can climb walls. Now, they can’t exactly scale skyscrapers, but most species of frogs can climb almost anything with relative ease. Not only is their skin sticky, but many have webbed or clawed toes that help them grip all kinds of surfaces more easily.
Let’s take an in-depth look at the species of frogs that can scale walls and how they do it without slipping off.
Which Frogs Can Stick To Walls?
It is true that frogs are good climbers in general, but not all frogs can climb up a slick or flat surface. However, some species of frogs are amazing at scaling walls. Here’s a list of some of them:
Tree Frogs
The Australian Tree Frog is well-known to be an expert climber. These fantastic creatures can go up walls as quickly as trees or other vertical objects. These tree frogs might be timid animals uncomfortable in new environments, but they can easily make a run (or jump) for it when they wish, and nothing helps them more than their epidermal toe pads.
A special kind of adhesive found on the underfoot of tree frogs gives them the ability to effortlessly climb walls and vertical surfaces.
Clawed Frogs
Also known as the tropical clawed frog, it comes from the frog family of Pipidae. Its natural habitat is savannas, rivers, tropical lowland forests, marshes, and rural gardens. These creatures can climb most surfaces, including glass and metal.
Clawed frogs have a secretion that makes their feet wet and sticky. This secretion, along with claws used to hook onto rough surfaces, aids them to vertically climb most surfaces.
Leopard Frogs
The leopard frog is the generic name used for many frog species that belong to the genus Lithobates. You will find that the Northern leopard frog can climb bathtubs, metal surfaces, and walls with relative ease. The Northern leopard frog has sticky skin that makes climbing vertical surfaces easier.
The adhesive on their toes, their claws, and their sticky skin are all tools that make terrain irrelevant.
What Helps Frogs To Climb Walls?
So, now you know that many species of frogs can indeed scale walls. But how do they do it?
Here’s what assists frogs in climbing walls:
- Sticky Skin – Most frogs secrete sticky mucus through their skin. The secretion allows the skin to remain hydrated. It is this secretion that makes frog skin appear so shiny. To touch a frog is a strange experience, as their skin is very clammy and sticky. On the other hand, the secretion also coats their padded toes.
- Clawed Toes – Some frogs are equipped with clawed toes along with their sticky skins. The claws on frogs’ toes make their challenge of climbing walls even easier. The toes prevent frogs from falling or slipping on smooth surfaces. In cold temperatures, the clawed toes of frogs save their webbed feet from coming into direct contact with the frozen ground. Moreover, the claws also serve as a defense mechanism against predators.
- Fleshy, Webbed Toes – Frogs that live in water tend to have hind webbed feet that propel them forward with little effort in the water. But, frogs such as tree frogs have webbed and fleshy toes. These padded toes act like suction cups that stick to smooth surfaces. In conjunction with the adhesive secretion, the fleshy toes give these frogs the capacity to ascend linear surfaces with dexterity.
Why Do Frogs Feel The Need To Climb Walls Or Windows?
There’s a variety of reasons why you might find frogs in your backyard or garden scaling trees, windows, or even porches. Let’s take a look at them:
Safety
To escape a growing population of predators in their natural habitat, frogs will often invade spaces where they might find a similar environment. So, you may see more frogs climbing the walls of your home when their own home has been disturbed.
Moreover, frogs even attempt to climb walls, windows, and porches when the weather turns for the worse, and they are trying to find warm spots to hunker down during the harsh winter seasons.
Source Of Food
Humans often disrupt animals’ natural habitats by using land for farming or housing. In such situations, the food sources of many species of animals are disturbed. If the food cycle in the natural habitat goes topsy turvy, then there will be a food shortage. It is in such cases that you will see frogs climbing windows and porches.
Many insect and animal species are uprooted from their environments, and when there is a lack of food, the animal population is invariably drawn towards the human environment. If your house attracts a lot of flies and insects, then you can expect frogs to be drawn to your home too.
Insects are attracted into people’s homes due to the scents and aromas coming from them. Frogs are intelligent enough to climb windows to be in the direct route of entry and exit of insects.
Lack Of Natural Environment
Humans have been quite thorough about wrecking the natural environment – forests, swamps, rivers – and to flee the destruction of their homes is the only chance of survival.
So, if you do discover a rapid rise of frogs closer to your home, it might be because they no longer have homes to go to. Frogs aren’t very curious animals, but when facing a threat to survival, you will find that frogs climbing walls and invading human homes.
Why Should You Keep Frogs Out Of Your House?
It is your responsibility to save or help any errant frogs stuck in your house. You might not be directly responsible for the wreckage of a frog’s natural habitat, but everyone can help an animal in need.
Frogs are resilient creatures that go to great lengths to ensure the survival of their species, but trying to welcome some frogs into your home can be as bad an experience for the frog as it can be for you. Frogs are sometimes poisonous, and some species of frogs carry toxins that can cause death for humans and domestic pets.
Moreover, human environments aren’t very safe areas for frogs. So, even if the frog is perfectly toxin-free and not poisonous, there’s a chance that your pet may end up killing the frog trying to catch it.
Final Thoughts
Frogs are mild-tempered and friendly animals. You may run into the rare toxic frog, but in general, frogs are relatively harmless beings. If you do happen to find one in your room, you should know that the poor thing is probably more frightened than you are.
Most frogs are good climbers, so you might find a few in your backyard or garden. But, not all frogs have the capacity to climb smooth surfaces such as walls, windows, or metals. Frogs don’t seek out the human environment, but circumstances such as scarcity of food or safety lead them to spaces inhabited by humans.
You must be as gentle as you can when helping them back to their own habitat, as frogs have delicate limbs. The safest way to catch a frog is to use a fishing net, as using your hands could result in you crushing the poor thing or letting the oils on your hands get onto their sensitive skin.
And if you find one hopping around in their own home, it’s always best just to leave them be and admire them from a distance.
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