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:
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.
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?