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February 13, 2014

13 Facts About Baboons and Frogs

Thursday Thirteen

Recently I’ve been plotting and planning a new series called Middlemarch Capture. One of the fun things about writing is you get to research all sorts of interesting things. This week I’ve been researching baboons and frogs for the first two books in my series.

Thirteen Things About Baboons and Frogs

We’ll start with baboons:

Baboons

1. The muzzle angles very sharply from the braincase and the face is free of hair.

2. The buttock area is naked of fur too.

3. All fingers have fingernails.

4. They hang out in troops of varied ages. If threatened the adults will protect those weaker and there are marked ranks within the troop.

5. They have powerful canines and are fierce fighters. Their main enemy is the leopard.

6. They are omnivores and eat grasses, insects, young gazelles and antelopes and sometimes others within the troop. They have also been known to kill human children.

Frog

7. Frogs are found on every continent apart from Antarctica.

8. A worrying number of frogs are becoming extinct each year.

9. Frogs are amphibians. They hatch as tadpoles and change to frogs. There are some frogs which develop directly and this enables them to live away from water.

10. Scientists call frogs an indicator species since they help to show how an ecology is functioning.

11. Frogs eat insects.

12. Different species of frogs have different shaped and colored eyes. They can be catlike, round or even heart shaped and the colors can be brown, bronze, green and red.

13. Frogs breathe and absorb moisture through their skin. Some frogs secrete a mucous through their skin. Some frogs shed their skin on a daily basis, while others stick to weekly shedding of skin. By all accounts this looks pretty freaky.

I found some very cool facts to twist and fit into my sci-fi romances. A very productive day!

What is the strangest thing you’ve researched?

22 Comments

  1. sandy

    indicator I did not know that

    • Shelley Munro

      I think because they’re so sensitive to changes.

  2. Jennifer Leeland

    Heart shaped eyes? Wow! that’d be cool. I didn’t know they were an indicator species. What a great TT.

    • Shelley Munro

      I thought that too. Heart-shaped eyes are perfect for Valentine’s day.

  3. Sandra Cox

    Cool. I love learning animal facts.
    I’m researching oil wells:)

    • Shelley Munro

      Oil wells sound interesting.

    • Shelley Munro

      I like learning new things too.

  4. Alice Audrey

    Baboons are scarier than I realized.

    • Shelley Munro

      Yes, they are. You don’t mess with a baboon. Their teeth are crazy big for a start.

    • Shelley Munro

      I like animals too, Paige.

  5. CountryDew

    I can’t say that I would have ever thought to put frogs and baboons in the same post! Very cool.

    • Shelley Munro

      LOL – they don’t have much in common until I did some brainstorming!

  6. Carol Kilgore

    Very interesting. I research daily, or so it seems. I just finished researching the Acadian surnames for the original Cajun settlers in Louisiana.

    • Shelley Munro

      I think research is one of the fun parts, Carol.

  7. Maria Zannini

    Now you have me curious as to how you plan to use this research. :)

    • Shelley Munro

      A good basis for aliens ;)

  8. Mary Kirkland

    That’s pretty cool.

    Strangest thing I’ve researched would probably be how to give a rat who is dehydrated a subcutaneous injection of saline.

    • Shelley Munro

      Google is good for lots of things :)

  9. gel

    Frog facts were familiar. Baboons were new. Interesting post. I love reading NF.

    • Shelley Munro

      Baboons aren’t the nicest animal, but they are fun to research.