摘要

Caption: "FLYING FROG". From a drawing by the author. Drawn on wood by Keulemans.

Drawing of a Flying Frog from Alfred Russel Wallace's book The Malay Archipelago. The newer version is from Papua Web: The Malay Archipelago (The Indo-Malay Islands)

See also: Image:Haeckel Batrachia.jpg, which uses this illustration and others of frogs.

Context

One of the most curious and interesting reptiles which I met with in Borneo was a large tree-frog, which was brought me by one of the Chinese workmen. He assured me that he had seen it come down in a slanting direction from a high tree, as if it flew. On examining it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to their very extremity, so that when expanded they offered a surface much larger than the body. The forelegs were also bordered by a membrane, and the body was capable of considerable inflation. The back and limbs were of a very deep shining green color, the under-surface and the inner toes yellow, while the webs were black, rayed with yellow. The body was about four inches long, while the webs of each hind foot, when fully expanded, covered a surface of four square inches, and the webs of all the feet together about twelve square inches. As the extremities of the toes have dilated discs for adhesion, showing the creature to be a true tree frog, it is difficult to imagine that this immense membrane of the toes can be for the purpose of swimming only, and the account of the Chinese man, that it flew down from the tree, becomes more credible. This is, I believe, the first instance known of a "flying frog," and it is very interesting to Darwinian as showing that the variability of the toes which have been already modified for purposes of swimming and adhesive climbing, have been taken advantage of to enable an allied species to pass through the air like the flying lizard. It would appear to be a new species of the genus Rhacophorus, which consists of several frogs of a much smaller size than this, and having the webs of the toes less developed. They jump from tree to tree and use their webbed feet to glide.

许可协议

	本作品在其来源国以及其他著作权期限是作者逝世后70年或以下的国家和地区属于公有领域。 你必须增加美国公有领域标签显示为何这个作品在美国属于公有领域。 请注意少数国家的版权保护期为70年以上：墨西哥为100年，牙买加为95年，哥伦比亚为80年，危地马拉与萨摩亚为75年，而这些国家不实施较短期限法则，因此该图片可能在这些国家不被认为是公有领域。洪都拉斯的版权期限一般为75年，但该国实施较短期限法则。对于在第二次世界大战期间为法国利益战死的法国人（更多信息）、二战期间参与过苏德战争（俄罗斯称之为伟大的卫国战争）的俄罗斯人，以及苏联时期遭到镇压，而死后获得平反的牺牲者（更多信息），这些人的作品版权期限会有所延长。
	本文件已被确认为免除已知的著作权法限制（包括所有相关权利）。

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/PDMCreative Commons Public Domain Mark 1.0falsefalse