The crab-eating frog (''Fejervarya cancrivora'') is a
frog
A frog is any member of a diverse and largely carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-frog" ''Triadobatrachus'' is ...
native to south-eastern
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
including Taiwan,
China, the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
and more rarely as far west as
Orissa
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sc ...
in India. It has also been introduced to
Guam
Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cen ...
, and was most likely introduced from Taiwan. It inhabits
mangrove swamp
Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fre ...
s and marshes and is one of only 144 known
modern amphibians which can tolerate brief excursions into
seawater
Seawater, or salt water, is water from a sea or ocean. On average, seawater in the world's oceans has a salinity of about 3.5% (35 g/L, 35 ppt, 600 mM). This means that every kilogram (roughly one liter by volume) of seawater has app ...
.
This frog can tolerate marine environments (immersion in sea water for brief periods or
brackish
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estuar ...
water for extended periods) by increasing
urea
Urea, also known as carbamide, is an organic compound with chemical formula . This amide has two amino groups (–) joined by a carbonyl functional group (–C(=O)–). It is thus the simplest amide of carbamic acid.
Urea serves an important ...
production and retention, and by remaining slightly hyperosmotic within urea and sodium flux. Adults can survive in salt water with salinity as high as 2.8%, and tadpoles can survive salinities as high as 3.9%.
Diet
The food sources of the crab-eating frog are mainly determined by the locally available prey. Near fresh water, its diet consists largely of insects. But in an environment with brackish water, small
crustacean
Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...
s, including
crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...
s, form the main part.
Human consumption
In Southeast Asia, the crab-eating frog is locally hunted for food and is often farmed for its
edible legs, including in Java, Indonesia.
[Kusrini, MD (2005)]
Edible frog harvesting in Indonesia: evaluating its impact and ecological context
Ph.D. dissertation, James Cook University.
References
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External links
Amphibian and Reptiles of Peninsular Malaysia - ''Fejervarya cancrivora''Amphibian and Reptiles of Peninsular Malaysia - ''Fejervarya raja''
Fejervarya
Amphibians of Cambodia
Amphibians of China
Frogs of India
Amphibians of Laos
Amphibians of Malaysia
Amphibians of the Philippines
Amphibians of Taiwan
Amphibians of Thailand
Amphibians of Vietnam
Amphibians described in 1829
Taxa named by Johann Ludwig Christian Gravenhorst
{{dicroglossidae-stub