Fables of Fact

Abstract

In 1835, Charles Darwin discovered, in the course of his voyage on the “Beagle,” a species of frog which has since borne his name: Rhinoderma darwini, or Darwin’s frog. This small anuran (anurans include frogs and toads), classified among the rhinodermatins, an independent family comprehending a few species of South American frogs with a pectoral girdle intermediate between the movable and the stiff form, has a triangular cutaneous tip on its head (as is clearly visible in the Figure 1); the frog is still found in Chile and southward. Its brood-care behavior is not only singular among all frogs—amphibians, like reptiles, are often poor parents—but perhaps the most bizarre technique of parental care, or “philoprogeneity,” so far described.