Are your eyes bigger than your stomach? This Pepper Frog (Leptodactylus knudseni) found a giant earthworm (Rhinodrilus piolli: Glossoscolecidae) that might have been too big to swallow.
Leptodactylus knudseni eating an earthworm (A), and regurgitating an earthworm (B).
Rhinodrilus piolli are evening active earthworms reaching 2.1 meters that cruise the forest floor during rainstorms, sharing space with Leptodactylus knudseni, a large sit-and wait-predator. Outside of Manaus, Brazil, observers encountered a Pepper Frog of 97.8 mm SVL that froze and began regurgitating a giant earthworm measuring 210 mm. The frog was just half the size of the earthworm, so the authors conclude that the earthworm’s size overwhelmed the frog. An alternative guess is that regurgitation of the worm was a defensive response by the frog to the presence of the observers. In either case, the earthworm was unharmed by its experience and wriggled off into the forest, perhaps to become a much larger adult.
Citation: Barros, A., P. Viana, D. Mendes, D. Pires, and R. Vogt. 2015. Leptodactylus knudseni (Pepper Frog). Diet. Herpetological Review 46 (4): 613.
Find the authors on Research Gate.