Parental care can be an element of frog reproduction. African bullfrogs and many members of the frog world guard their eggs. Poison dart frogs will look after the eggs and carry the tadpoles. African bullfrogs are famous for the ferocity of their parental instincts. They have been known to attack cranes, other bullfrogs, and even lions and people who approach eggs or larvae. They have also been known to dig escape tunnels between puddles and ponds so that their tadpoles can move to larger bodies of water.

Midwife toads mate on land, and the male sticks his hind legs into the egg mass, which adheres to him. He then carries the eggs with him as he goes about life until they are ready to hatch. At that point he carries them to the water and they swim away to start their own tadpole stage.

The Darwin’s frog of Chile and Argentina makes dual use of its expandable vocal sacs. The eggs are laid on land, but after a few weeks of development, one or more of the attending males takes the eggs into their mouth, where they will complete their development in the vocal sacs.

The male marsupial frog has hip pockets in which he carries the tadpoles and metamorphosing juveniles. Two or three months later, the pouch-borne tadpoles emerge as fully developed frogs. The eggs are initially laid in a clump on land, and the male remains near the nest. When the eggs hatch, the male becomes covered with egg jelly, and some of the tadpoles swim to him and his pockets. The remaining tadpoles have presumably failed their first and last test.