Amphibians
Budgett's Frog
Lepidobatrachus laevis · also called Budgett's frog, hippo frog, Escuerzo de agua, freddy krueger frog
Budgett’s frog is a living whoopee cushion with teeth — a flat, grey, comically wide-mouthed aquatic frog from the South American Chaco that, when threatened, inflates, stands tall, and screams in your face before lunging to bite. The rest of the year it sits motionless underwater, waiting for something to swim past its mouth.
Overview
Budgett’s frogs live in the Gran Chaco of Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil, in temporary pools and flooded grassland. They are ambush predators, lying half-buried on the bottom and engulfing fish, tadpoles, frogs, snails, and insects — including smaller Budgett’s frogs. The body is 10–13 cm and nearly as wide as it is long, with tiny upward eyes and a mouth spanning the whole head.
The scream
Cornered, the frog inflates, rises on straight legs, gapes, and gives a sudden loud shriek, then lunges and bites. Two fang-like odontoids on the lower jaw and real teeth on the upper jaw grip prey — and can draw blood from a careless keeper.
Waiting out the drought
When the Chaco pools dry, Budgett’s frog burrows into the mud and wraps itself in a cocoon of shed skin layers that seals in moisture, dropping into dormancy for months until the rains return.
Status
Budgett’s frog is Least Concern, widespread and locally common in wet years, but tied to seasonal wetlands and sensitive to their drainage.
Budgett's Frog: common questions
Why does Budgett's frog scream?
The scream is a defensive bluff. Budgett's frog is soft-bodied, slow on land, and has no toxins strong enough to deter a determined predator, so its strategy is to look and sound far more dangerous than it is. Confronted, it puffs itself up with air to increase its apparent size, straightens its legs to stand tall, opens its huge mouth to show the pale lining and the fang-like odontoids, and lets out a loud, startling, almost catlike shriek. If that does not work it lunges open-mouthed and bites. Against a snake or a bird, a sudden scream and a mouthful of teeth from an unexpectedly large-looking frog is often enough to buy an escape.
Can Budgett's frog bite you, and does it hurt?
Yes, and yes. Both the upper jaw teeth and the two bony odontoids on the lower jaw are functional, and a large Budgett's frog can clamp down hard and hang on. Keepers describe bites that pinch sharply and sometimes break the skin and bleed, though there is no venom and no lasting harm beyond a small wound to clean. The frogs are not aggressive toward anything they do not see as food or a threat, but they have poor eyesight and a strong feeding response, so a finger moving near the water at feeding time can be mistaken for prey. Handling is generally discouraged for the frog's sake as much as the keeper's.
How does Budgett's frog survive the dry season?
It aestivates — the hot-weather equivalent of hibernation. The Chaco has a pronounced wet and dry cycle, and the shallow pools Budgett's frogs live in disappear entirely for months. As the water drops, the frog digs down into the soft mud and then sheds successive layers of skin without removing them, building up a tough, papery cocoon around its whole body that leaves only the nostrils clear. This casing dramatically slows water loss, and the frog drops into a low-metabolism dormancy, living off fat reserves until heavy rain softens the ground and triggers it to break out, feed voraciously, and breed explosively.
Is Budgett's frog a good pet?
It is a popular and hardy captive that is entirely captive-bred, so keeping one does not harm wild populations, but it is a specialist rather than a beginner's pet. It is fully aquatic to semi-aquatic and needs a good volume of clean, shallow, filtered, dechlorinated water with an easy exit ramp, stable warmth, and a varied carnivorous diet. It must be housed completely alone because it will attack and eat tank-mates, including its own kind. It can deliver a real bite, it is prone to obesity and skin infections if kept in poor water, and it is long-lived, so it is a 10-to-15-year commitment.