2. Wolverine Frog: Exit Wounds

Darwin's Deviations

Trichobatrachus robustus, a.k.a the Hairy/Horror/Wolverine frog. Described somewhere after the late 1880s. Short and hairy, it prefers to inadvertently stab everyone who hugs it. Powers & Abilities include enhanced senses, animal-like attributes, a regenerative healing factor, retractable bone claws, an indestructible skeleton (it will destroy it itself before ever giving you a chance) and is a master foot-to-foot combatant. Its whole life, it felt like an animal. Nature made it a freak, we made it into an episode...but we also made it last too long :)

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Intro/outro sampled from "Sequence (Mystery and Terror) 3" by Francisco Sánchez (@fanchisanchez) at pixabay.com

Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com

Image Credit: Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Episode image is heavily edited, the image owner reserves all rights to their image, and is not affiliated with our podcast)

SOURCES:

Squeakers: Frogs with Claws, Frogs with "Hair"

About the Horror Frog

'Horror frog' breaks own bones to produce claws

Blackburn et al. Concealed weapons: erectile claws in African frogs. Biology Letters, 2008; 1 (-1): -1 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2008.0219

BAREJ, M.F., BÖHME, W., PERRY, S.F., WAGNER, P., SCHMITZ, A. (2010) The hairy frog, a curly fighter? – A novel hypothesis on the function of hairs and claw-like terminal phalanges, including their biological and systematic significance (Anura: Arthroleptidae: Trichobatrachus). Revue Suisse de Zoologie 117(2): 243-263.