Sep 2, 2026 · 33 min · 8 segments
Following Charles Darwin on his voyage around South America, we arrive in Chile - where he discovers a remarkable little frog that has one of the strangest approaches to fatherhood in the whole Animal…
Darwin's Menagerie Part 2 Frog Fatherhood By late 1834, HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, had rounded the southern tip of South America and was working its way up the coast of southern Chile.
As wild and spectacular a bit of the world as you could ever hope to see.
Countless islands, dense temperate rainforests known as Valdivian Forests, mile after mile of snow-capped mountains and rain lots of rain charles darwin's reputation is mainly i guess as a thinker a researcher and studier But he was, back in these Beagle years, a bit of an explorer.
Maybe not what you'd call a hardcore explorer, but he was going to extraordinary places and often breaking new biological ground.
Such as when he went to the island of Lemuie.
An amazing place in its own right, but what's relevant here is the collection of much smaller islands that lie off the east coast of Chiloé, between it and the mainland.
One of them is Lemuy.
which if you look at satellite photos today is a patchwork of cleared agricultural lands and some bits of remaining forest.
In Darwin's day it was not by any means uninhabited, but it was a good deal less developed.
In the then expansive thick forests of this island, Charles Darwin encountered a frog he had never seen before, which he described in his field notes.
Throat, breast and cheeks Rich chestnut brown with snow-white marks Thighs of hinder legs Blackish with same marks Legs yellowish Also with same marks Upper side Pale iron rust colour With posterior parts of body Thighs and anterior marks Beautiful bright green Appearance very pretty and curious, nose finely pointed.
Inhabits thick and gloomy forest, island of Namui.
This is the first scientific record of the species now known as Rhinoderma darwinii, Darwin's frog, or, to be more precise, for reasons we'll get to later, the southern Darwin's frog, a small frog mostly restricted to Valdivian forests in the southern half of Chile and some little bits of neighbouring Argentina.
Darwin would later, once he'd seen a few more examples of this frog, add to his notes to say, This species is excessively common in the forests of Valdivia, seems subject in its colours to remarkable variations.
Darwin's Menagerie Part 2 Frog Fatherhood By late 1834, HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, had rounded the southern tip of South America and was working its way up the coast of southern Chile.
As wild and spectacular a bit of the world as you could ever hope to see.
Countless islands, dense temperate rainforests known as Valdivian Forests, mile after mile of snow-capped mountains and rain lots of rain charles darwin's reputation is mainly i guess as a thinker a researcher and studier But he was, back in these Beagle years, a bit of an explorer.
Maybe not what you'd call a hardcore explorer, but he was going to extraordinary places and often breaking new biological ground.
Such as when he went to the island of Lemuie.
An amazing place in its own right, but what's relevant here is the collection of much smaller islands that lie off the east coast of Chiloé, between it and the mainland.
One of them is Lemuy.
which if you look at satellite photos today is a patchwork of cleared agricultural lands and some bits of remaining forest.
In Darwin's day it was not by any means uninhabited, but it was a good deal less developed.
In the then expansive thick forests of this island, Charles Darwin encountered a frog he had never seen before, which he described in his field notes.
Throat, breast and cheeks Rich chestnut brown with snow-white marks Thighs of hinder legs Blackish with same marks Legs yellowish Also with same marks Upper side Pale iron rust colour With posterior parts of body Thighs and anterior marks Beautiful bright green Appearance very pretty and curious, nose finely pointed.
Inhabits thick and gloomy forest, island of Namui.
This is the first scientific record of the species now known as Rhinoderma darwinii, Darwin's frog, or, to be more precise, for reasons we'll get to later, the southern Darwin's frog, a small frog mostly restricted to Valdivian forests in the southern half of Chile and some little bits of neighbouring Argentina.
Darwin would later, once he'd seen a few more examples of this frog, add to his notes to say, This species is excessively common in the forests of Valdivia, seems subject in its colours to remarkable variations.
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