Big Picture: Fascinating Frogs by Photographer Chien Lee

Photographer Chien Lee has spent years in the tropical rainforests as a biologist, photographer and guide. With the eye of a scientist and tremendous patience, he captures unique behaviors and adaptations of his subjects. His compelling photographs become only more interesting when we learn the fascinating details in his insightful captions like those shared here.

In today's gallery we are focusing on Chien's coverage of tropical frogs.
Wallace's Flying Frog (Rhacophorus nigropalmatus) is one of the largest of all tree frogs in Borneo. It is capable of gliding down from the forest canopy by using its enlarged webbed feet as parachutes.
Hidden in the dense leaf litter of the rainforest floor, an Amazonian Horned Frog (Ceratophrys cornuta) lies in wait for its next meal. With a mouth wider than the length of its body, and a voracious appetite to boot, these frogs can consume prey as large as small reptiles and rodents.
A Harlequin Tree Frog (Rhacophorus pardalis) female making a foam nest on a small tree overhanging a breeding pond. After depositing her eggs they will be fertilized by the two accompanying smaller males.
Without seeing it move, you could almost mistake the Golden Mantella (Mantella aurantiaca) for a bright orange plastic toy. This is one of Madagascar’s most endangered amphibians and is an icon for conservation of the island’s threatened wildlife. Efforts targeted at protecting this frog’s habitat, coupled with ex-situ breeding programs and reintroduction have helped to protect it from extinction in the wild, but it remains critically endangered and is still known to exist at only two small isolated patches of rainforest.
One of Borneo’s most elusive and enigmatic amphibians: the Bornean Flat-headed Frog (Barbourula kalimantanensis). Looking like the prize-winning stone from a rock-skipping competition, albeit with four webbed feet, this frog’s bizarre appearance is an adaptation for its aquatic life in fast-flowing rocky streams. Despite numerous expeditions to the region, less than twenty specimens have ever been found by biologists, making it one of the least known of all frogs.
An inhabitant of the rainforest canopy, the White-lined Leaf Frog (Phyllomedusa vaillantii) descends to swamps and pools of water during rainy periods to breed. These frogs are branch specialists, and use their highly dextrous limbs and fingers to walk rather than jump.
A newly-identified species of pitcher-plant breeding bush frog, Philatus nepenthophilus lives on a single mountain in the interior of Borneo and has a close associated with the rare endmic pitcher plant N. mollis. The frogs not only lay their eggs inside the pitchers, but also spend a great deal fo their life in and around them as well. Males call from pitchers and dive into the fluid inside to retreat from danger while the plant receives nutrients from the frog's droppings.
In most cases of male frog parental care this involves carrying either eggs or tadpoles, but in a few New Guinean species, such as this Sphenophryne cornuta, actual froglets ride in piggyback fashion. A member of the Microhylidae, these frogs have direct-development larvae which means that the tadpoles morph into tiny frogs before leaving the egg, an adaptation enabling them to negate the need for a pool of water. The froglets will hitch a ride on the back of their father for several days before being dispersed in the rainforest understory.