When we encounter a frog, what are we really seeing?
To a biologist, it may be a Rhinella icterica. It may represent an occurrence record, behavioral evidence, or a component of an ecological community. To someone else, however, that same animal may be a "cururu" (cane toad), or simply the toad that appears after the rains.
It may also be an animal associated with luck, rain, fertility, transformation, magic, or spirituality. In other contexts, however, it may represent fear, dirt, poison, or bad omens. (1) The animal is the same. The relationship built with it is not.
It is precisely within this space between the animal and the different meanings that humans attribute to it that ethnozoology finds one of its greatest opportunities for conservation. Ethnozoology can be understood as the study of the relationships between humans and other animals. More than simply cataloguing common names or beliefs, it allows us to investigate how different societies observe, classify, use, represent, and attribute meaning to fauna.
This perspective creates a space for dialogue between scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge. By bringing different forms of knowledge together, ethnozoology can contribute to scientific research, environmental education, science communication, and community participation in conservation strategies.
Anurans are among the most recognizable animals in rural and urban landscapes. Even people who have never studied zoology can often identify a frog or toad by its appearance or call. This familiarity generates a body of knowledge that can either be overlooked by science or, alternatively, used as a starting point for new investigations. A simple common name can provide a clue. Common names can serve as gateways to local and traditional knowledge while also providing clues for scientific research. The name "sapo-martelo" (hammer frog/blacksmith treefrog) used for Boana faber, is an interesting example. The name refers to the resemblance between the species' call and the sound of a metal tool being struck. The person who created or passed on this name did not need to know animal acoustics to recognize a real characteristic of the species' behavior. They simply needed to listen.
Not all knowledge about animals takes the form of a scientific description. It may be found in a story told by a grandmother, a children's song, a superstition, a game, a popular expression, or other cultural practices and traditions.
An example of this possibility emerged during a species survey conducted in April 2025 in the municipality of Vassouras, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. During the fieldwork, Leptodactylus labyrinthicus, commonly known as the pepper frog, was recorded. Until then, no documentation of its occurrence had been found for the municipalities of the region. The finding, however, was not an absolute novelty to local residents, as the species had already been reported by people from the region. (2,3) How much information about the anurans found in a given region remains outside formal scientific records simply because it has never been sought through the conversations, memories, and experiences of the people who live alongside these animals?
The literature provides other examples of this potential. Studies involving the genus Leptodactylus, for instance, demonstrate how local knowledge can reveal information about the species' behavior (3,4). In other contexts, traditional knowledge associated with amphibians has also contributed to the recognition of properties, uses, and characteristics of these animals long before they were investigated by formal science.
The case of Phyllomedusa bicolor, the "kambô", is particularly well known. Indigenous peoples of the Amazon have developed specific knowledge about the secretions produced by this species and their uses in the context of kambô (5). Likewise, knowledge of dendrobatid toxins is associated with a long-standing relationship between Amazonian peoples, amphibians, and their environments (6).
These examples do not mean that popular accounts should replace scientific investigation. On the contrary, they show that communication between different forms of knowledge can generate research questions, guide investigations, and bring researchers closer to information that might be difficult to uncover through conventional scientific protocols alone.
When Frogs Enter Our Stories
The relationship between humans and anurans, however, is not limited to everyday observation or local ecological knowledge. These animals also occupy important places in memory, imagination, and culture.
In Brazil, few zoological images are as widely recognized as that of the "sapo-cururu" (cane toads, like Rhinella icterica and R. ornata). The existence of a traditional song about this toad has helped spread the image of a toad calling by the riverside, associating its call with everyday life and transforming it into a character in a narrative passed down through generations. At the same time, the song incorrectly attributes the toad's calling to cold weather, creating an opportunity to explain to children the actual context and biological function of anuran vocalizations.
For a child, singing about a frog may be nothing more than a game. For conservation, however, an interesting question arises: how many people had their first emotional connection with an animal precisely through a story?
Environmental education often seeks to bring children and adults closer to biodiversity through scientific information. But culture has been doing part of this work for a very long time. Songs, characters, cartoons, films, games, and stories make animals familiar to us even before we know their scientific names. This connection can be harnessed for conservation.
A child who first encounters a frog as a fictional character may later discover that a real organism exists behind that representation. A song can make an animal familiar. A story can spark curiosity. A character can serve as a first gateway to an interest in biodiversity.
But this same capacity of culture to create connections can also produce rejection.
Anurans have been associated, in different historical and cultural contexts, with danger, impurity, and the supernatural. Christian representations have, in certain contexts, contributed to associations between these animals and ideas of bad omens. In Brazil, even today, anurans can be considered dangerous, poisonous, or unpleasant without any biological basis for such interpretations. The disgust toward anurans, combined with negative superstitions, may contribute to a lack of empathy toward these animals. The so-called "salt prank," for example, turns aversion toward frogs into an act of cruelty. The suffering caused by sprinkling salt on a toad is interpreted as part of the joke, and a child may consequently learn that causing an animal to suffer is an acceptable form of entertainment. This example demonstrates that culture should not be idealized.
Culture can protect, but it can also cause harm. A narrative can foster respect or fear. A song can create familiarity, while a superstition can generate rejection. One story may bring a person closer to an animal, while another may teach that the same animal should be avoided or destroyed. The question we should ask is: What kind of relationship does this narrative create between people and the animal?
In Ancient Egypt, deities associated with frogs, or with their symbolism, were connected to aspects such as fertility, water, birth, darkness, and transformation. Heqet, for example, was represented with frog-like features and was associated with fertility and childbirth. Kek, another deity of the Egyptian pantheon, was associated with primordial darkness and could also be represented in frog form or with a frog's head. In Europe, there are also associations and correspondences between frogs and the goddess Hecate, whose importance has persisted into contemporary times. In Brazil, popular associations can be found between frogs and the orishá Xangô, as well as with the Sapo-Aru, a rain-associated spirit (1,7).
In other cultural contexts, frogs and toads have likewise been associated with luck, protection, purification, fertility, transformation, and prosperity. The contrast is significant. The same animal that, in one context, may represent impurity can, in another, represent fertility. An animal regarded as a bad omen by one society may be a symbol of good fortune to another. This reveals something important for conservation: there is no single, culturally inevitable way of perceiving an amphibian.
Human relationships with these animals are culturally constructed and, therefore, can also be transformed. A child who first encounters an animal as myth, legend or a fictional character may later discover that a real species exists behind that representation. A game can spark curiosity about an organism. A song can make an animal familiar. A story can foster empathy. Popular culture can therefore serve as a gateway to biodiversity.
In this sense, ethnozoology does not need to be understood as an alternative to zoology, but rather as a bridge to it. Amphibian conservation faces challenges that cannot be addressed through species lists and protected areas alone. It is necessary to protect habitats, reduce threats, understand diseases, monitor populations, and produce scientific knowledge. But it is also necessary to understand the people who live alongside these animals.
If a community perceives a particular frog as dangerous, a conservation campaign will need to address that perception. If an area has been protected but the surrounding population does not understand its importance, formal protection may not be sufficient.
Likewise, if children know frogs through characters, games, or songs, these elements can be transformed into tools for environmental education. If a community has its own stories about these animals, those stories may become part of a broader conservation strategy.
Ethnozoology can therefore be understood as more than the study of common names or beliefs. It can function as a meeting point between different ways of knowing animals, particularly within a context that values epistemological and ontological pluralism, traditional knowledge, civic participation, cultural communication, and the recovery of symbols and memories.
Instead of entering a community simply to teach people which species are present and what threats they face, we can first ask: Which frogs do you know? What do you call them? Where do they appear? When do they begin calling? What have you learned about them? What stories exist about these animals? Do you think they are important? Why?
Before asking people to protect an animal, it may first be necessary to understand which animal they see when they look at it. And perhaps one of the most important tasks of modern conservation is precisely this: not only teaching people to know anurans, but learning to know anurans through the people who already live alongside them.
After all, long before they became species described by science, frogs were already characters in our stories, inhabitants of our landscapes, and part of our memories.
References
- Ferraz, I. & Perrotta, V. Na boca do sapo: a figura dos anuros em imaginários animistas contemporâneos. In: Da-Silva, E.R. & Coelho, L.B.N. (eds.). IX Colóquio de Zoologia Cultural. Livro do Evento – vol. 2: Resumos. A Bruxa 8(e3), 14 (2024).
- Ferraz, I., Perrotta, V. & Abrunhosa, P.A. Composição da anurofauna em área heterogênea de Vassouras, município do Vale do Café, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Revista Eletrônica Multidisciplinar de Investigação Científica 5(23) (2026). https://doi.org/10.47402/remici.v5n236626
- Ferraz, I., Perrotta, V. & Abrunhosa, P.A. Prosas do brejo pela conservação da anurofauna: etnozoologia na pesquisa, ensino e extensão. In: Da-Silva, E.R. & Coelho, L.B.N. (eds.). X Colóquio de Zoologia Cultural. Livro do Evento – vol. 2: Palestra de abertura e temas livres. A Bruxa 9(e3), 42 (2025).
- Oliveira, I.S. de & Freire, E.M.X. Local ecological knowledge about amphibians by farmers in agricultural systems of Brazilian semiarid region. Revista Brasileira de Ciências Ambientais 36, 198–211 (2015). https://doi.org/10.5327/Z2176-947820151013
- Lima, E.C. de & Labate, B.C. "Remédio da Ciência" e "Remédio da Alma": os usos da secreção do kambô (Phyllomedusa bicolor) nas cidades. Campos – Revista de Antropologia Social 8(1) (2007). https://doi.org/10.5380/cam.v8i1.9553
- Myers, C.W. & Daly, J.W. Dart-poison frogs. Scientific American 248(2), 120–133 (1983).
- Santos, E. Anfíbios e répteis: vida e costumes. Villa Rica, Belo Horizonte, p. 64 (1994).