What's a glass frog

The Hindu

06-06-2025

'There! Found you,' exclaimed Silvery, propping himself comfortably on a high tree branch, beaming with delight over his new find. Perched on a leaf, obscuring itself into the leaves with his masquerading skills was the Northern glassfrog.
Like a ninja in the dead of the night, the glass frog was in stealth mode.
'GLASSY! I thought I might never find you. I have been searching for you for quite a long time,' Silvery's voice cut through the stillness of the night. 'You are one hard person to find!'
'Pretty much the point, don't you think?' asked Glassy, disapprovingly. The glass frog had given up. It will be dawn soon and it was better to dismiss this citizen journalist fast, thought Glassy.
'Yes, yes, I'm sorry to interrupt your nightly pursuits. But I just thought I would have a quick chat with you and your incredible gift of transparency.'
'Not transparency. I'm not completely transparent. I'm translucent.'
'Well, Potato potahto...' added Silvery, grinning.
'Not quite. My skin is not completely clear. I'm translucent and have a partially see-through body. I have a unique form of transparency which helps me camouflage myself and hide from predators.'
'I'm listening.' In the forests of southern Mexico, there thus began a long, deep talk between Silvery and Glassy, a northern glass frog (Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni) also known as the Fleischmann's glass frog.
Glass frogs are a group of tree frogs found in the rainforests of South and Central America.
'Well, the skin on our back is light green. The legs are more translucent than the body. It is a trick to fool the eyes. The eyes are sensitive to edges, you see. You distinguish something using the outline. When you see the contrasting colours or edges meet, that's when you notice the edges. But when the edges cannot be seen, you cannot differentiate. That's why I have translucent legs. As I sit on the leaves, legs wrapped around my body, there is no contrast. I blend smoothly with the colour of the leaves. So it becomes harder to determine the edges. And by masking the body outline, I get to disappear into the leaves.'
'Wow!'
'It's called edge diffusion. When viewed from above, I blend into the leaves because of the colour and edge diffusion tactics.'
'I see, leaves are your armour. Your kind is arboreal, right?'
'Yes, we spend a lot of time on trees. We are also called tree frogs. And, if you didn't know by now, we are nocturnal as well.'
'Yes, yes, I'm aware. Which is why I tried to find you at night. I was sure your disappearing skills are even more pronounced during the day, when you sleep.'
'Yes, you aren't wrong there. It's actually a scientific feat, one can say.'
'Oh, how so?'
'Listen. Your story series in Wild Tales is not probably in our best interests. If I give away all of my tricks, it will expose our kind.'
'No no, I'm sure that even if your predators knew your skills they still wouldn't be able to find you. You are a Ninja.'
'Does it always work?
'What?'
'Flattery!'
'Well, sometimes,' grinned Silvery. 'This trick of yours, of being see-through. It's quite rare in land animals. Did you know that?'
'Okay, let me tell you something even more interesting. So during the day, we sleep on the bottom of large leaves. It's important to escape predators. So when we sleep, we hide our blood. We are capable of moving some 89% of the red blood cells into our liver. This further makes us almost invisible or more transparent, as the bright red blood cells will lay hidden and out of view. I can thus perfectly match the colours of the vegetation.'
'Wow. And you can do this without your blood clotting?'
'Yes. When we are up, our circulatory system is red in colour. When we are asleep, we hide the colour by sending the red cells into the liver. Our liver also doubles in size. My underbelly becomes see-through. You can even see our internal organs. If you turn me upside down, you can see right inside my body.'
Silvery started.
'I'm just telling you, please do not do that.'
'Okay, sorry. This underbelly transparency, I didn't know that. Yet you are so tiny. I'm just wonderstruck at what even a tiny species like you is capable of!'
'Body shaming, are we?'
'No, no, I'm in awe.'
'Our species is rather small. I don't normally grow more than 25 millimetres.'
'Who are your predators?'
'Big wasps, snakes, birds...And also habitat degradation. Deforestation. We are losing our natural habitats as we lose these trees.'
'Tell me about it,' Silvery nodded disapprovingly and melancholically. He took a good look around.
The dawn was breaking and the wet, thick forests glimmered under the sunlight. Silvery hopped towards the edge of the branch and opened his eyes wide in joy. From here he could see the golden orb rising in all its glory, casting a caramel orangish glow all around.
'Mornings get so surreal here,' Silvery added enthusiastically, turning towards the tiny frog. But Glassy was nowhere to be seen.
'GLASSY? Hello.....Don't pull your tricks with me...'
He rubbed his eyes and tried to focus harder.
'I have more questions...'
No response.
Glassy had pulled a Houdini on him. The light was breaking in and Silvery heard a rustle below. The forest was silent again. A sudden fear gripped him. A strange, dark thought occurred.
What if.., what if some predator had got to Glassy. All that banter and Glassy must have let his guard down. And when I moved away, could someone have got to him?
A deafening silence filled inside him. Silvery slowly climbed down. He shut his eyes, drew a long breath and started down to the stream. His eyes ached. The forest fell unnaturally quiet.
He was sorry. He hoped that Glassy was safe. If not, he knew that it was all for the best.
Everything in the wild, the laws of nature, it was all for the best. There is a certain check and balance at work in the wild, that only we are aware of. A gazelle is born for the lion. A frog, for the snake; the snake for the bird. That's the law of the wild.
Nothing is ever lost...
Far above, suctioned underneath a large leaf, Glassy smiled and got ready for his long slumber.
'What a long night!'