Animal · Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama
Red-eyed tree frog
Agalychnis callidryas — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The red-eyed tree frog is one of the most recognisable rainforest animals, with vivid green skin, orange feet and startling red eyes. It lives in the rainforest canopy of Central America.
Picture credit: Geoff Gallice (CC BY 2.0) · Christian R. Linder (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Pavel Kirillov (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the red-eyed tree frog live?
Home: Tropical rainforests of Central America.
In the wild you find it in: Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Colombia.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown it measures 5–7 cm long. It weighs about 0 008 kilograms. On the menu: insects.
The story behind it
A red-eyed tree frog spends the day sleeping with its eyes shut and its bright colours hidden, pressing its body flat against a leaf with its feet tucked in so it looks like a plain green shape. If disturbed, it suddenly flashes open its huge red eyes and reveals bright blue and yellow flanks and orange feet in a startling display called deimatic behaviour, which can briefly confuse a predator and buy the frog a split second to leap away. At night it becomes active, hunting insects such as crickets and moths with a long, sticky tongue. Frog eggs are laid on leaves overhanging ponds, and when tadpoles hatch they simply drop straight down into the water below. Amazingly, some tree frog eggs can sense vibrations from an approaching predator and hatch early to escape danger. The species remains common across its range.
Find it on the globe
Red-eyed tree frog is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why does a red-eyed tree frog have red eyes?
Its huge red eyes are a defence trick. When a predator disturbs a sleeping frog, it snaps its eyes open suddenly, revealing a flash of red and bright colours that can startle the predator just long enough for the frog to escape.
Are red-eyed tree frogs poisonous?
No, unlike poison dart frogs, red-eyed tree frogs are not toxic to touch. Their bright colours are used to startle predators briefly rather than to warn of poison, a defence called deimatic behaviour.
Where do red-eyed tree frogs lay their eggs?
Red-eyed tree frogs lay clusters of eggs on leaves that hang over ponds. When the tadpoles hatch, they simply drop out of the eggs and fall straight down into the water below to continue developing.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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