Frogs: A Chorus of Colors: this is "a fascinating and fun exhibition that explores the incredible diversity of this important group of amphibians which has been roaming the Earth for more than 200,000,000 years, at least as long as the dinosaurs."

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 2004

* The marsupial frog keeps her eggs in a pouch like a kangaroo. When the eggs hatch into tadpoles, she opens the pouch with her toes and spills them into the water.

* Pipa pipa, the Surinam toad of South America, carries her young embedded in the skin of her back. After mating, the eggs sink gradually into the female's back, and a skin pad forms over them. The developing juvenile frogs are visible inside their pockets for several days before hatching. They emerge over a period of days, thrusting their head and forelegs out first, then struggling free.

* The gastric brooding frog of Australia swallows her fertilized eggs. The tadpoles remain in her stomach for up to eight weeks, finally hopping out of her mouth as little frogs. During the brooding period, gastric secretions cease--otherwise she would digest her own offspring.

* Among Darwin frogs, it is the male who swallows and stores the developing tadpoles in his vocal sac until juvenile frogs emerge.

SPECIES

African bullfrogs, which are native to sub-Saharan Africa, can grow to eight inches in length and eat everything from insects to reptiles to small mammals. They are able to live without food or water for months in times of drought by burrowing underground and hibernating. When it rains, they emerge to eat and mate. The male guards the tadpoles, which swim around him for protection. After metamorphosis, when the tadpoles have developed into frogs, they often eat their smaller siblings.

African clawed frogs are almost totally aquatic, and can live in stagnant pools, puddles, and streams. They originated in sub-Saharan Africa, but now can be found in freshwater areas worldwide.

American bullfrogs and tadpoles exist in the U.S. in ponds, lakes, and slow-moving streams. The females lay up to 20,000 eggs attached to submerged vegetation, and their tadpoles take up to two years to metamorphose. The bullfrog will eat practically anything, from crayfish and other frogs to small mammals and birds.

Budgett's frogs live on the ground in Paraguay, northern Argentina, and southeastern Bolivia, ingesting insects, snails, and other frogs. When confronted, this frog puffs up with air, arches its back, and screams like a cat. It even may jump at an intruder, and bite with its two large tooth-like projections in the lower jaw.

Chinese gliding frogs are indigenous to southeastern China. They have extensive webbing between their toes so that when they leap between branches, their toes spread and the webbing stretches like the wings of a hang glider. Although no frogs can truly fly, these glide, using their feet to bank and steer through the air.

Dart poison frogs, found in Central and South America, are so named because the Embera Choco, an indigenous people of northwestern Colombia, poison their blow darts by rubbing them along the backs of three local and highly toxic species. The frog's secretions, made toxic by poisons in their invertebrate prey, which include ants and beetles, are incredibly potent--a single golden frog contains enough poison to kill 20,000 mice or 10 people. The frogs in the exhibition, which were bred in captivity, have been fed a diet that lacks poisonous compounds, rendering them harmless. In the exhibition, nine species are housed in the central vivarium---blue, golden, phantasmal, two-toned, yellow-banded, Kokoe, Brazil-nut, splash-back, and three-striped varieties.