Pipa pipa inhabits the eastern region of South America, and Trinidad.

Biogeographic Regions: neotropical (Native )

females: 105-171 mm males: 106-154 mm Pipa pipa are wide and greatly flattened with triangular-shaped heads. They are generally light brown, with darker brown spots on the back.

Females can be distinguished from males by a ring-shaped swelling at the cloaca, visible only when the animals are ready to breed.

The animals have very small black eyes which are lidless and beadlike.

These frogs have large, flipper-like hind feet. Their forelimbs are short with webless digits that each end in a star-shaped organ. These quadripartite fingertips are one of the characteristics that distinguish Pipa pipa from other species.

• Terrestrial
• Freshwater

Pipa pipa are highly aquatic, living in murky ponds and swamps.

Aquatic Biomes: lakes and ponds; rivers and streams

Pipa pipa are aquatic omnivores. They eat worms, insects, crustaceans, and small fishes. They lack tongues and use the long, sensitive fingers of their forelimbs to search for food on the bottoms of ponds. Their forelimbs also serve to stuff the food into their mouths. Immature Pipa eat invertebrates such as Daphnia and Tubifex worms.

Average lifespan

Status: captivity: 6.8 years.

Reproduction in Pipa pipa includes direct development of the young; there is no larval stage. The female carries the eggs in a honeycomb structure on her back until they complete development and emerge as miniature adults. Mating begins when males make a tickling call while in the water. Males grasps the female from above and around the waist in inguinal amplexus. The female initiates vertical circular turnovers while they're together. The male clasps the female with his forelimbs wrapped in front of her hindlimbs, and they raise off the floor of the stream or pond and swim to the surface of the water to get air. At the top of the arc, they flip, now floating on their backs, and the female releases 3-10 eggs which fall onto the male's belly. Completing their arc, they flip to their original position, bellies to the ground. The male now loosens his grip and permits the eggs to roll onto her back while he simultaneously fertilizes them. This spawning ritual is repeated 15-18 times. Roughly 100 eggs are laid and fertilized.

The eggs adhere only to the female's back, possibly due to a cloacal secretion. They do not stick to the male's belly nor to other eggs already on the female's back. In the hours after fertilization, the eggs sink into the female's skin. Skin grows around the eggs, which become enclosed in a cyst with a horny lid. During development, the young grow temporary tails, which are apparently used in the uptake of oxygen. After 12-20 weeks, the young emerge as tailless flat frogs shaped like their mothers, except that they are only 2 cm in length. They are, however, fully developed except for bifurcation of the lobes on the fingertips.

The young usually emerge from the female's back at the time of molting, that is, when the mother sheds her skin.

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: no special status

There are no ecomonic benefits other than that they sometimes consume harmful insects.