A tree frog is any frog that spends a major portion of its lifespan in trees, known as an arboreal state. Several lineages of frogs among the Neobatrachia have given rise to tree frogs, even though they are not closely related to each other.
Many millions of years of convergent evolution have resulted in almost identical morphology and ecologies. In fact, they are so similar as regards their ecological niche that in one biome where one group of tree frogs occurs, the other is almost always absent. The last common ancestor of some such tree frog groups lived long before the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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Famous quotes containing the words tree and/or frog:
“A tree that can fill the span of a man’s arms
Grows from a downy tip;
A terrace nine stories high
Rises from hodfuls of earth;
A journey of a thousand miles
Starts from beneath one’s feet.”
—Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.)
“In almost all climes the tortoise and the frog are among the precursors and heralds of this season, and birds fly with song and glancing plumage, and plants spring and bloom, and winds blow, to correct this slight oscillation of the poles and preserve the equilibrium of nature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)