BRAZIL’S FAUNA
(Page prepared by a nature’s observer)

Frogs and Toads (Order Anura)

  Habitat and Distribution

      

 The anure amphibians are distributed for almost around all the globe and in almost all ecosystems. But in the tropical forests we can find the biggest diversity of the known species. From more than 4.500 described species, around 45% occurs in the Tropical America.
The absence of recent gladiations, the climatic and vegetation stability, the big complexity of the environment and the big quantity of precipitation are factors that make equatorial and subtropical forests favorable environment for the development of the biggest number of species ( Duellman & Trub 1986). This way, the Brazilian forested regions (Amazonian Rainforest and Atlantic Forest), have been deserving bigger studies because of the exuberance of its biological diversity.
The majority of anures need water for reproducing and high humidity level for surviving, in a way that in the humid ecosystems as in the forests, is where they find the most favorable environment for living. But the anures have facility of adaptation to diverse pluvial and temperature conditions, needing most of the times of small humidity for surviving, what makes possible finding them, also, in arid regions as scrub savannas, because they are capable of living in the most extreme climatic conditions, sometimes passing months without eating and in hibernation state.
They live in variable altitudes, since coastal shoals to altitude camps of 2.400 meters, as in Itatiaia-
RJ, where we have found Melanophryniscus moreirae ( Miranda-Ribeiro, 1920 ) .
In the soil of the Atlantic Forest we can find, for example, Eleuthodactylus parvus , binotatus e geutheri, além de B. ephippium and Procerathropes  boeie .
    In the lakes, ponds and swamps we can find the hylidae, as Hyla faber ,  Hyla minuta, Hyla prasina, Hyla albopunctata, among some others.
As already said, for all Brazil we can find the anures; in the shoals, in the marine rock hillsides, in the swamps, in the atlantic wood, in the savanaahs, scrub savannas, fields, altitude fileds and Amazonian Rainforest.
  In general the anures have reduced mobility, dismissing little meters from the place where they were born. This is allied to the big climatic and morphological diversity of the country, allows the big occurrence of endemism in the country (species that just occur in a certain place or environment). On the other hand, because of the factor of big adaptability allied to the factors that are still unknown, some anures are distributed for most all over Brazil, as the Hyla minuta.

    Consulted Bibliography
   DUELLMAN, W.E. & TRUEB, L. 1986. Biology of amphibians. McGraw Hill Book Co., New York. 670 pp.
   MIRANDA-RIBEIRO, A., 1920, Os Brachycephalideos do Museu Paulista (com três espécies novas). Rev. Mus. Paulista, 12:307-315, 3 pls.