Mary Alton age 120 of Victoria, B, C

 What does amphibian mean?

An amphibian plane has pontoons for landing on the water, The marines make an amphibious landing when their boats take them right up to the beach, A certain brown seaweed is an amphibious plant. And the most famous of all the amphibians is the bullfrog that croaks in Thickety Creek,

This word amphibian is a very hard worker, It seems to cover a number of different meanings ranging from planes to bullfrogs, Perhaps we can track down its original meaning with some detective work. The lovely sounding word is coined from two older words. But you are quite wrong if you guess they mean land and water, The amphi comes from a Greek word meaning both double or two kinds, The second part comes from an older word bio~ meaning to do with life,

An amphibian, then, leads a double life, It so happens that thin double life concerns land and waters but there are no clues to this in the origin of the word. The amphibian plane is not strictly alive but$ unlike most planes, it is at home on land and water, An amphibious landing is unusual because the troops arrive from the sea all armed and ready for battle. These uses of the word have rather stretched the original meaning. It is a dramatic trick of language to name something new from something well known in nature.

Nature's amphibians are the plants and animals that enjoy life both in water and on land, The trick to this is in breathing. Most plants and creatures can breathe in either air or water, The amphibian leads a double life because$ to some extent$ it can take oxygen from both air and water,

Certain seaweeds are doused under water at high tide and left high and dry at low tide, Many pond weeds have some leaves below water and others in the air, Most of the water lily plant is submerged. Only its flat leaves and blossoms exist in the air.

The most famous of these double lifers are the charming animals that belong to the family called Amphibia. They are the frogs, the toads the salamanders. When grown, they are four‑legged, cold‑blooded$ air‑breathing little creatures. They begin life as eggs, almost always in the water. Frogs and toads go through a fish stage as gill‑breathing tadpoles]

Later they exchange their gills for lungs: Most of them spend their adult life in and out of the water. Most amphibians need constant moisture on their soft skins, One of the wonders of nature is the skin belonging to our amphibious bull frog, It is a breathing organ. When damp, it can dissolve oxygen directly from the air, Under waters it can take in the free oxygen. Tiny blood vessels are near the surface of this wonderful skin, They take in the oxygen and set it circulating throughout the body.

This explains how your pet frog can sit comfortably on the bottom of his swimming ppol for as long as he chooses, He does not have to come up for air because he can breathe through his skin. He can even croak under water: Surely this amphibian is the most, wonderful of all the amphibians?