Babies Burst from Mom's Back

The Surinam toad has one of the most unsettling reproductive methods in nature. The babies develop embedded in the skin of the mother's back and eventually burst out as fully-formed toadlets.

Here's how it works:

1. During mating, the pair performs underwater somersaults 2. The female releases 60-100 eggs, which the male fertilizes and pushes onto her back 3. The skin on her back swells and grows over the eggs, encasing each in its own pocket 4. The eggs develop into tadpoles, which metamorphose inside these pockets 5. After 3-4 months, fully-formed baby toads emerge, popping out of mom's back

The mother's skin essentially becomes a mobile nursery. The pockets provide protection from predators and maintain proper moisture levels for development. When the babies emerge, they leave behind honeycomb-like holes in the mother's back (which heal over time).

This adaptation allows the Surinam toad to reproduce entirely in water without needing to lay eggs in a specific location. The tadpoles skip the free-swimming stage entirely, emerging as tiny versions of adults.

It's genuinely one of nature's most skin-crawling (literally) methods of reproduction.