Cool Facts about the Vietnamese Mossy Frog

• When a mossy frog feels threatened or frightened it curls into a ball and plays dead, making them look like small mossy pebbles or pieces of rock.
• As you may have expected, their name is derived from the fact that their back looks like an irregular shaped rock covered with a layer of moss, which is their way to camouflage in the steep rocky cliffs they live in.
• The amazing Vietnamese Mossy Frog has no hard palate, so when it swallows insects it pulls its eyes back down so that it can push the food down its throat.

An Amazing View

This odd looking frog lives in the northern Vietnamese highlands, mostly around the Mao Son and Tam Dao mountains. Their natural habitat is basically the steep rock cliffs and rainforest with its evergreen vegetation- I bet they have an awesome view when they wake up in the morning. Also, they live along the banks of streams and the flooded caves where they love to abide – flooded caves…could these frogs live in a cooler place?

Due to their amazing adaptation to the natural environment they live in,  you’ll most likely see the mossy frog in broad daylight, well… if you’ll be able to spot them anyway. However, these semi-aquatic amphibians are nocturnal creatures, meaning that they are active and hunt at night time. Yeah, that is correct, they are carnivorous and their most favorite foods are small crickets, cockroaches and other invertebrates that are not larger than the size of their heads.

Because of the fact that their habitat is such a restrained area (they live nowhere else in the world), they are unfortunately considered to be endangered. Significant and continuous forest damage around the Tam Mao mountain and the clear-cuttings have narrowed down their natural habitat even more in the last few decades. This is the reason why the Vietnamese government protects the mossy tree frogs by law (good job Vietnamese government!).

A Versatile Frog

Besides the fact that it is such a master of disguise with their camouflage, the mossy frog is a very adaptable little creature. It is a semi-aquatic, which means that it lives in both water and land, it is very familiar to living in caves and in small rock cavities in the Vietnamese mountains. Also, we see the mossy frog living around streams of water, climbing above to lay its eggs and secure its continuity.

Climbing? Well, another interesting feature of the mossy frog is the fact that it has these adhesive disks attached to each of its digits, helping the little fellow climb trees, plants and vegetation. Perhaps these amazing skills along with perfect camouflage has helped the Vietnamese mossy frog survive in an environment where predators are just around the corner.