Did you know that frogs breathe through their skin?

Have you ever wondered why frogs spend so much time in the water? It all has to do with their super skins!

Frogs have lungs, and they breathe air just like we do. But their skin is so thin that they can breathe through it as well! Frogs also don’t need to drink water like we do. They can absorb it through the skin on their bellies.

But frogs can also lose water though their skin very easily, which is why most of them need to stay near water. If they want to leave the water, they have to have special adaptations that let them do it. Some frogs feel very slimy if you touch them; that’s because their skin secretes a thick mucous to help stop water from escaping.

Other frogs have different ways of keeping their water in. Tree frogs, for example, have thicker skins than most frogs. Toads have even thicker skins, which means they can spend much more time away from water.

But if water gets scarce, frogs can survive by burrowing deep into the ground, where the soil is moist, and hibernating there until it’s wet again.

Because their skins are so important, frogs must keep them healthy. To do this, they actually shed their old skins to make way for a new, healthy skin underneath. The frog must wriggle around until they can get the skin off, and then, to make sure they don’t lose any of the important nutrients in the old skin, they eat it! Old skin makes a tasty snack for tadpoles, too.