Biology - Wood Frog - Essay Example

For example, it has a moderate size up to two inches or two to three inches long ("Wood Frog - Rana Sylvatica: Minnesota DNR" ), and it has a smooth, moist and reddish skin. Moreover, it is cold blooded and can tolerate a large temperature and saves the water inside the body for the later usage for example, in some cases, up to 65% of the whole body water. Additionally, wood frog has webbed feet just as other amphibians but it does not have fully webbed feet. Moreover, it has a vertebra that is why it is usually identified as vertebrates; it also has notochord which identifies for the Chordates.

It can live in water as well as in soil and it can lay eggs in water as well as in the soil. Furthermore, its eggs does not have any membrane which makes them amphibians, males and female frogs gather in ponds for reproduction, skin coloration is brown, and they also go to ponds and water lands for breeding. Moreover, its sound can be heard in the first periods of the spring and they have dark pitch under their eyes The relationship between the wood frog and other organisms can be reflected by the fact that wood frog belongs to Kingdom Animal which is the broadest category of classification.

This is because of the fact that most of the animals that are categorized as “animals” have some specific characteristics which are common to them. For example, organisms that are characterized as “animals” are eukaryotic i.e. the animals that have developed cell membrane and complex cell structures, for example plants, fungi etc. Moreover, organisms in Kingdom Animal are “motile” which means that they can freely move from one place to the other. The examples include snack, lion, deer etc.

These are all animals and have common characteristics with the wood frog because they are all under Kingdom Animal. The second category of classification is the Phylum which is Phylum Chordates in case of the wood frog. Furthermore, the animals in Phylum Chordates are identified with their Notochord which they have at least for some period of their lives, a hollow dorsal nerve chord, and an anal tail etc. Besides this, notochord is the flexible and rod shaped body which is found in the early embryos and, in some cases, becomes the axial support of the body.

Similarly, the animals in Phylum Chordates include Hagfish, Star fish and lancelet etc. and these animals have the common characteristic with the wood frog that they all have notochord, a hollow dorsal nerve chord and an anal tail. In this way, wood frog is more closely related and associated with the animals of Phylum Chordates because they have many common characteristics. The third category of classification includes Class which is Amphibians in case of wood frog. The basic characteristics of amphibians are that their eggs are not surrounded by membranes, they have four limbs and they are cold blooded.

For example, toads, salamanders etc. are the vertebrate chordates that have same characteristics as wood frog. In this way, wood frog is far more linked and has similarity with animal chordates such as salamanders, toads because they are in the same class and have similar characteristics. Similarly, wood frog is also associated with many other amphibians due to their order which is anura and family which is Ranidae. Moreover the common genre and species