Midwife Toads and Painted Frogs: Discoglossidae

These frogs are mainly European, living in both central and southern Europe. Some also live in northwestern Africa and Israel.

Their diets may include beetles, caterpillars, grasshoppers, flies, and other insects, as well as other types of invertebrates (in-VER-teh-brehts), which are animals without backbones. These invertebrates may include spiders, pillbugs, and snails. Although their tongues do not flick out of their mouths, as do the long tongues of many other species of frogs, they have no trouble snapping up prey right into their mouths.

People rarely see these toads and frogs in the wild. Scientists, however, are especially interested in the midwife toads for the unusual way the males care for the eggs. In most frogs, neither the male nor the female play any part in guarding the eggs or rearing the young.