Strange Breeding

The Surinam toad, an aquatic South American toad (family Pipidae), is about 20 cm (8 inches) long. It has small eyes, a flat, squarish body, and a flat head with loose flaps of skin on the face. Its "fingers" have little star-shaped appendages that help them find food.

Photo sent in by J. Powers of Bloomington, Indiana

These bizarre creatures are well known for their weird brooding habits.
They mate in the water, and as the eggs are released the male fertalizes them and presses them to the back of the female.
In the next several hours, the skin grows around the eggs to enclose them in a cyst with a horny lid.
After about 80 days, the eggs develop, and the young emerge out of the back of this toad as a bunch of tiny froglets!