Red-eyed tree frog embryos are capable of hatching prematurely if necessary. Otherwise, they continue to develop in safety, in their eggs.(Karen M. Warkentin) ...

“For red-eyed tree frogs, their fast-hatching mechanism enables about 80 percent of embryos to escape from snake and wasp attacks, over a pretty broad developmental period,” Warketin says.

But red-eyed tree frog eggs can hatch in seconds, if the need arises. Karen Warkentin discovered this ability in 1995, and she has spent the last 20 years exploring it.

A wasp lands on a clutch of red-eyed tree frog eggs too young to hatch. Warkentin That an embryo can respond at all to predators represents a recent rethinking of the powers of eggdom.

Photo by Carey James Balboa, Public Domain. In many frogs, hatching glands are loosely scattered on the embryos’ bodies. These glands release the enzyme slowly, over several hours or days.

There are many dangers in the natural environment that tree-frog eggs have to face. Fish love to eat the eggs, as do other predators, so adult frogs can lay their eggs on foliage hanging over ponds.

If deadbeat dads among frogs shirk their parental duties, neglected egg clutches can respond by hatching early. Eggs laid on the undersides of leaves by the glass frogs Hyalinobatrachium ...

Warkentin began studying early hatching by red-eyed tree frog eggs more than a decade ago. Since then, the effort has grown; Warkentin now heads a team that includes Michael Caldwell and Justin ...

Poo, S. & Bickford, D.P. (2014). Hatching plasticity in a Southeast Asian tree frog, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. DOI 10.1007/s00265-014-1781-0.

HATCHING FROGS. Zoologists at the University of Malaya said Saturday they have found a frog that grows out of an egg instead of going through the tadpole stage in water. Zoology professor Yong Hoi ...