Alfred Wallace's amazing flying frog
I knew about Wallace's flying frog from reading "The Malay Archipelago" (published 1869). It's a fantastic looking creature with splayed toes and webbing providing the ability for gliding flight. Here's the illustration (by John Gerrard Keulemans ) in Wallace's "The Malay Archipelago." Wallace's description was as follows: " One of the most curious and interesting reptiles which I met with in Borneo was a large tree-frog, which was brought me by one of the Chinese workmen. He assured me that he had seen it come down, in a slanting direction, from a high tree, as if it flew. On examining it, I found the toes very long and fully webbed to their very extremity, so that when expanded they offered a surface much larger than the body. The fore legs were also bordered by a membrane, and the body was capable of considerable inflation. The back and limbs were of a very deep shining green colour, the under surface and the inner toes yellow, while