The common reed frog is particularly thrifty at rationing out its moisture to maintain long, dry periods during the extended dry seasons in West Africa. It does so by a combination of anuria and increasing its ability to intake water.[2] Fluids contained in its bladder can be used when water becomes unavailable, and the increase in uptake allows it to replenish its stores quickly when the weather allows.
Some evidence suggests that west African frogs may change sex from female to male after having successfully bred.[3] Animals that switch sex as adults are known as sequential hermaphrodites because they have the gonads of either sex but at different periods of their lives. This contrasts with animals which are "simultaneous hermaphrodites" which have both gonads at the same point. However, this sequential hermaphroditism in reed frogs has only been noted once and in a captive colony; it is not generally accepted by scientists that this process occurs in amphibians. Despite a lack of evidence for hermaphroditism, the film Jurassic Park has become a cultural reason for why many believe that frogs can be sequential hermaphrodites.
