Summer is the season for light clothing, but in the human world, it is generally considered embarrassing to have one's body showing through. However, there are many see-through creatures in nature, and among them, the see-throughness of a small frog that lives in the tropical rainforest, the false tree frog, is particularly amazing.

With the exception of a few highly poisonous species, frogs do not have any weapons to protect themselves from predators, so they are often preyed upon in the wild. For this reason, it is vital for frogs to know how to hide.

Some creatures use "protective coloring" to make their body color similar to leaves, sand, or other habitats to deceive the eyes of predators, but the false tree frog uses a tactic of hiding its body. Its body is so transparent that you can see its internal organs, especially on the ventral side, and even feel its heartbeat.

A species of the tree frog family

Their transparent bodies allow them to blend in with plants of any color or pattern. Moreover, they are extremely effective because they do not cast dark shadows even under the intense sunlight of the tropical rainforest. They rest motionless in the shade of leaves during the day, and come out at night when there are fewer predators to catch and eat insects.

Now, the false tree frog's body displays another important function during the spawning season. During the rainy season, the false tree frog lays masses of eggs on the leaves of trees that jut out into the river, and it is thought that the false tree frog's body mimics those eggs.

After laying the eggs, the female goes off somewhere, but the male stays by her side to protect the eggs. The parent's back, with its translucent skin and lightly spotted pattern, closely resembles the egg mass, and acts as a decoy to distract predators such as wasps that are after the eggs. At this very moment, the male uses all his strength to shake off the enemy with his hind legs. The male's physical fight continues until the eggs hatch.

The tadpoles, which hatch safely in this way, still have transparent bodies, slide down from the leaves into the river below, where they continue to grow in the water.

There are many other transparent creatures living in nature. In the human world, it would be great if there was a convenient fabric that was thin but opaque, and even protected us from UV rays.

Living Creatures Encyclopedia: False Tree Frog

Also known as the glass frog, there are around 150 species of small tree frogs found in the tropical rainforests of Central and South America. Their transparent bodies are gummy and jiggly, and their large, forward-facing eyes are adorable. They have suction cups on the tips of their fingers, which is an adaptation to life in trees. Males are known to devotedly protect their eggs, spraying them with their own urine to prevent them from drying out.

Material with anti-see-through function

By using raw materials that have fine particles kneaded into them to suppress light transmission, and by applying special processing to the fabric, this material is able to prevent transparency and at the same time block UV rays.