Rediscovery of a Trinidadian Alien

At first glance this frog looks like a roadkill toad that has been run over more than a few times. This alien looking frog is a completely aquatic species, never having any need to leave the water.

Its camouflage makes it virtually invisible amongst the leaf litter in the forest streams which it usually inhabits. Once fairly abundant across Eastern and Southern waterways on Trinidad, the Suriname Toad (Pipa pipa) has not been reported here for at least the last 32 years.

Many speculated that the species had been locally extirpated due to pollution such as agricultural pesticides, fertilizers and waste, oil and industrial chemicals leaching into the waterways which they reside.

This fully aquatic frog is extremely sensitive and any kind of chemical pollution may as well be a death sentence. Over the years we have visited many areas within the historic range of the Suriname Toad and never saw any sign of it.

Expeditions have been made by various groups over the years to search for the animal, all returning unsuccessful. My teammates and I have spent the last few months discussing, debating and making conjectures on the status of the species on the island and areas which may possibly still harbour populations of this legendary animal.

We had to find somewhere free from agriculture, any large scale development, and with a suitable expanse of virgin interior forest habitat. Did such a place even exist anymore on Trinidad? Any stream or waterway with any kind of human disturbance upstream of our survey areas could be ruled out. After going back and forth countless times between whether this animal even existed anymore or not, we had to find it.

If this thing was still out there, we would be the ones to find it. On Saturday 10th June 2023 we set out on an expedition to a untouched area of forest on Trinidad's southwest peninsula to find it. We arrived at the spot at around 1am on Sunday morning and were blown away by the incredible waterway that we had discovered.

“This place looks like Guyana!” one of us exclaimed. We found the perfect interior forest habitat that we had been searching for. No human development to speak of and rare species of fish that we had previously only ever dreamed of seeing in the wild. We all spread out over the area, each following a different tributary. I selected a tributary which at the time was made up of a sequence of puddles with very little water trickling between them. I walked up on a shallow pool of water and saw a bunch of things scattering and darting through the thick web of tree roots around it.

They were what must have been at least 5 Brown Banded Water Snakes (Helicops angulatus). I spotted one darting away from me through some short plants and began chasing it. In the middle of chasing this snake, I heard Nicholas shout something in the distance about a frog. With the amount of excitement behind that voice, there is only one thing it could have been. I left the snake and just started bolting Adrenaline pumping, I jumped 6 feet clear over the stream and ran towards the others.

I think that everyone there thought that he was playing some sort of prank until we ran over and each saw this thing kicking around in the net that he was holding up. The next few minutes were full of screaming, crying and hugging as we had alas found the legendary creature that we had been longing for. There is no wonder this animal is so hard to find; it looks like a dead leaf! Virtually invisible amongst the floor of these blackwater streams, they can easily go overlooked.

Now knowing what it actually looked like, I looked into the water, and low and behold, almost immediately saw another one. This time a much bigger one. I dipped the net and missed it. Less than a minute later, I spotted the spindly fingers of another one sticking out from the leaf litter floor of the stream. I dipped the net and scooped up the cluster of leaves that it was in.

Incredibly, this was a female with eggs! Their unique method of reproduction is what the Suriname Toad is most famous for. The female will carry the eggs under the skin on her back where they develop from tadpoles into fully formed frogs. This process takes over 100 days and the offspring emerge from holes on their mother’s back as fully fledged miniature versions of their parents. The tadpoles could be seen moving around under this individual’s skin.

We saw a total of 4 Suriname Toads that night and captured 3. They each had their respective photo sessions and were released exactly where we found them. This was by far my most significant expedition to date as we have discovered an entire thriving population of these frogs that have been lost to science for over 30 years! But hold up guys we are not even close to being done yet.

This habitat that we have found also has the potential to facilitate some bigger, rarer and much more significant animals that these frogs. Stay tuned to see the next set of creatures that we pull up because it is going to be incredible.

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