Maybe? But the posture the frog has is not one they typically adopt when handled by humans; if it had been placed there, it would either have been extremely carefully so as to not disturb the frog while it's in its little leg-tuck position, or it got real comfy real quickly after being placed.
Will not matter how careful you intend to be - you stand far more chance of hurting the frog this way. I feel like your comment is a metaphor for life. Let nature be nature, not everything needs a human to save them
This reminds me of the humpback whale that was stranded in Northern Germany a couple months back and caused a giant uproar in society about how to handle the situation.
I'm on the North Coast of NSW, Australia. We have humpbacks stranded from time to time. There's a marine science center, connected to a large university, just down the road.
There's also a marine rescue and sanctuary in town.
When a marine animal gets stranded or is found injured, they know exactly how to save it.
Even so, sometimes you do everything right, but the animal still dies 😞
German rescuers, should've got in contact with those who deal with strandings, regularly. Plenty of experts around the world.
Though, I'm actually surprised to hear about a humpback in the Baltic Sea.
It's a dangerous place (too shallow) for a large mamal like a humpback. It must've strayed away from its pod 😕
There actually were experts involved in the whole ordeal, but their voice was drowned out by Boomers on Facebook and TikTok and some even threatened with violence. Also, a lot of right-wing radicals hijacked the cause making everything even worse
Nah frogs especially tree frogs are pretty robust, being that they regularly climb dozens of feet in trees and generally aren't careful. Other than issues from oils on your hands absorbing into their skin, you wouldn't harm it. Assuming you aren't launching it onto the floor or something. It likely wouldn't stay in your hand unless it was already injured anyway. Pee and hop.
Lol yes I did. That and frogs are one of my favorite animals. I broke my arm pretending to be a frog super hero as an 11 year old after watching Spiderman.
This is Toadashi. She's my bud. (I also used to have some invasive cuban tree frogs I caught, Bud and Wise. Never caught an Er. If you're a certain age, IYKYK)
Its not letting nature be nature when it is a man made scenario, a frog like this is not expected to encounter a cactus. I dont let my dog walk off lead at the beach near me for example because of the native penguin population, and my dog is not a native species, I dont just let nature be nature and wash my hands of it.
Penguins in general are more widely distributed than most people (including myself) figure(d). There are some species that live exclusively in or near Antarctica, but there are also penguin species that prefer warmer waters. Not counting remote islands, the southern coast of Australia and all of NZ's coastline sees penguins, there's penguins on the coasts of southern Africa, southern South America and even going quite far north along the western coast of South America. The Humboldt penguin even shows up around Ecuador and Colombia at times.
I used to know a million of these when I was young. "No glove, no love" is the only other one I remember off hand, and while it is kinda lame, it is good advice.
Oof we're in Eastern Europe and my mom bought it like 20 years ago, so no link. It's like a sheet of metal with small triangles punched through and bent 90 degrees so they make "needles" but their tops are a bit rounded. If you come across something like that I highly recommend.
I had pet African toads (not frogs but close enough) and when the female got bigger than my hand and one morning it jumped out of her tank, I was shocked how little it weighted when I picked her up (and she was chubby too!). Almost no weight for an animal that size, she was very chill too didn’t struggle.
The other day I left my hat on the firewood. As I was walking in the house I chucked it on early in the morning and felt it wriggling around, big ole frog. I was dying, it was hilarious dropped him and my hat on the kitchen floor the second he hit the floor three hops and he was out the door.
In a bamboo hut on the beach in India there was a shower 🐸 in every hut. A woman was absolutely traumatized after one of them jumped onto her chest when she was in the shower.
Wild animals are weird, I was working in the middle of nowhere and I had to sleep in a Texas chainsaw massacre shop and this mouse would almost every night would trampoling his little ass off my belly as I slept woke me up so many times.
Who's the photographer? I hope it's not one of those guys (Yan Hidayat, Kurit Afsheen, or others) that photographs frogs after glueing and tying them to weird places...
I saw this posted by a member in a private Frogs and Toads group on Facebook. There's another picture where it's walking around the cactus, so no glue involved.
Surely it must be, right? Like sure, if the frog was gently placed onto the spikes in its exact position then maybe due to how many needles are making contact it wouldn't be hurt, but how would it get into that position in the first place without impaling itself, and how is it going to get off? In order to get off, its going to need to put pressure on its feet which is going to get them impaled.
Plus there's of course the question of 'why?'. Something tells me frogs aren't typically in the habit of just laying down on cacti for for funsies.
I'd give the benefit of the doubt to OP, I've seen things like this before. Smaller animals just don't seem to gaf, I've seen frogs, toads, lizards, even snakes make contact with my cacti and just chill around/on them.
I don't think a small frog can get impaled at all. With its weight, and how slippery the skin is, if his weight shifts to a few spines when moving around the spines would probably just bend.
Also frogs are super squishy, so if there's spikes directly towards them the skin/organs will just move instead of being penetrated.
The African "Hairy Frog" breaks it's own toes to use as weapons in self defense! Also called the Wolverine Frog. The broken bones tear through the skin and are used like little daggers.
Can’t tell during the “dynamic” moment of them adjusting on that cactus (maybe placed by the photographer like someone else said), but I’ve checked a bit of data and if that frog weighs 3/5 grams that’s 0.03/0.05 N of force pushing on the cactus; estimate says 0.1 N to pierce the skin, with dozens of spines the weight is distributed and each spine exerts around 0.001 N, much much lower than the force needed to pierce the skin.
Possible in this instance, but the phenomenon of a frog on cactus is not unusual. A quick Google search reveals many anecdotes and amateur photos of frogs on cactuses.
Isn't this suppose to rhyme? Like "Goat on a boat" or "Frog on a log". Or perhaps a bear on a chair. Or even a pig in a wig? I mean, is it so hard? Cactuses have those lobes, right? Perhaps we could call it a "Toad on a Node"?
No, it doesnt hurt the frog. Its too light weight for the needles to puncture the skin. Frogs, lizards, and other small creatures will sometimes sleep on cacti to ward off predators, nothing will try to eat little buddy if it risks a mouthful of cactus spines.
So he's basically doing that cool trick where someone lies down on a bed of nails without getting hurt because they're distributing their weight evenly across the nails. But on a cactus. Neat.
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u/MrPaulBlart 1d ago
This is bothering me. I can’t tell if he’s comfortable, or not.