Horned Frog

Latin Name: Ceratophrys

Other name/s: Pacman frog

Horned frogs live in many places across the globe, such as Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, and Venezuela. They live in marshes and near bodies of water, close to the forest floor.

How do they defend themselves and hunt?

When threatened, they can inflate their body to make themselves more intimidating and harder to swallow. They also have an extremely powerful bite, which they can attack predators with. They have strong jaws, with sharp teeth in their upper jaw and two fang-like teeth in their lower jaw. They spend lots of their time buried/half-buried in the ground with only the top of their head exposed, where they can wait for prey and hide from predators. They can also play dead, staying still until the predator passes, because the predator thinks it’s dead. They are ambush predators, and they mainly hunt small mammals (such as mice and small rats), small reptiles (lizards and snakes) and they have been known to be cannibalistic and anurophagic.

Can they be pets?

Yes, they can be kept as pets. This is because they are considered robust and simpler to maintain than many other amphibians, which means they are great for newer frog owners. Another reason that they are great pets, are that they spend most of their time underground which means there is a lot less activity. Some considerations that need to be taken into account are that they must be kept alone to prevent cannibalism, they also will bite anything that moves, and as stated above, they can deliver a very painful bite, so you must be extremely careful when it comes to handling. They also need deep substrate (4-6+ inches) for burrowing, and they need a basic terrarium with appropriate heat.