WE’RE NO STRANGERS TO misbehaving frogs. (Er, remember these guys?) But this slide show from an Australian newspaper takes wild frog behavior to a whole new level. There’s even a photo of a tree frog eating a rat! (Yes, you read that right: a rat.)

DID YOU KNOW that the Horned Frog is Texas Christian University’s mascot? In light of  TCU’s stellar football season this fall, the Horned Frog has been making headlines in Fort Worth. They’re featuring all kinds of  facts on the team and the amphibian right here.

BOLTON, UK–the town that once brought its citizens a festive underwater Christmas dinner–is now planning The Great North Frog March for May of 2010. The charity march will require teams of five  to walk around the town’s track five times with flippers on, backwards. Money raised from the event will go to Bolton Lads and Girls Club, the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and a cancer charity. Sounds like a hopping good time! See you there?

photo via The Bolton News

AMIDST ALL THE CONTROVERSY that has surrounded the release of Disney’s The Princess and the Frog, Prince Naveen (aka the frog) has been a shining star! Just check out that vocal sac! Have you seen the movie? What do you think?

IN A RECENT GERMAN INTERVIEW, pop star Lady Gaga paid homage to her favorite fictional amphibian by sporting a jacket adorned with dozens of Kermits! If this isn’t frog fanaticism, we don’t know what is. (Watch the interview here.)

WE’RE BECOMING BIG FANS of the online project asknature.org, from The Biomimicry Institute. It’s an enormous database all about our natural world with easy searching and great tidbits. For example, we learned just today that frogs actually propel themselves forward in water by creating a vortex with the force of their webbed feet. A vortex! All the science-y details are here.

DID YOU KNOW THAT the fragile Northern Leopard Frog (above) is under serious threat? We recently learned from the Wildlife Action Center that this beautiful species of amphibian, once prevalent throughout North America, “are put at an even greater risk by endosulfan–a deadly pesticide that’s been banned in at least sixty countries, but not in the U.S.” Thousands of concerned people signed this letter to let legislators know that the health risks to amphibians and humans caused by endosulfan are unacceptable. We await news of governmental response.

(photo by Sage)

UNBEKNOWNST TO US, there has been a great debate for some time now about the origins of mysterious frogs born without hind legs. Well thanks to some stealth camera moves by a man named Brendan Ballengee, this science mystery appears to be solved. Find out where these legless amphibians are coming from. (Psst, the weird photo above is your hint.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

REMEMBER WHEN WE WROTE about a Nepalese frog wedding months ago? Well it looks as though the droughts have persisted in that region of the world. An amphibian union was in order last week in India. Can you believe that female froggy necklace? We hope the rains come soon.

FOR YOUR VIEWING PLEASURE: a handsome toad with a vocal sac to die for. Photo from toad photographer, dmills727. (His title for this picture is ‘Toads in the Hood’)