40. Purple Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis)
The purple frog is a bloated, purple-gray burrowing amphibian with a tiny head and stubby limbs. It spends almost its entire life underground in the Western Ghats of India, emerging only for a few days each year to breed.
Its lifestyle stuns readers. It can stay buried for 50 weeks at a time, surviving on termites and ants while its body shape evolved into a living “digging balloon.” When it finally surfaces, males call with a loud clucking sound underwater. Adults who thought frogs needed ponds are shocked by this subterranean “purple blob” that proves life can thrive where we never even look.
