anuran

noun

1. Any amphibian of the order Anura; a frog, a toad.

   “Inactivity may dominate an anuran’s life. Spea hammondii in the deserts of southwestern North America spend >90% of their life inactive; they appear explosively and breed with the first heavy summer rains, then feed for 2–3 weeks before becoming inactive for another year.”

   “Often the anuran gives a release call, a signal to other anurans that it is either not sexually receptive or is of the wrong sex to be amplexed. The release call may sound similar to a distress call, a vocalization emitted by an anuran in response to predation, but either call may serve to startle a clinician momentarily, by which time the anuran may escape.”

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or relating to the order Anura.

   “As a further illustration, we may take the results of experiments in which a Urodele organiser (from Triton alpestris) is grafted into an Anuran embryo (Bufo vulgaris).”

   “It is well known that an anuran tadpole or an insect larva will never turn into its adult form if the respective endogenous metamorphic hormones, thyroxine and ecdysone, were withdrawn or prevented from reaching the target tissues.”

   “[I]njection of urodele DNA into an anuran (frog) egg produces an extra "balancer" (i.e., protrusion on the chin of the embryo which may or may not be a real balancer), but so does injection of the DNA of this anuran into its own egg.”