Cobra-Like Frog

In August 2009, this cobra-like frog was found hiding amongst the litter when it was discovered by Jun, a laborer we hired to dig some holes to erect a fence next to our home in Puerto Princesa. Jun thought it was a cobra with part of its body embedded in the soil. We were a little bit wary of this sluggish moving frog because of its apparently hostile appearance and it is something that we have seen around the place. It might be a toxic kind of frog. There are some frogs that are known to have toxic secretions coming from their bodies.

We approached it cautiously and get to it as near as possible to take a close up picture. The frog lay motionless for a while but upon closer scrutiny, it jumped!  

I followed the frog for a while trying to take pictures as close as I can but made no attempt to catch it because I thought there may be many of them in our place. The problem is, this was the last time I saw this frog. It's kind of rare and difficult to find again. I tried to look over my references on amphibian identification but I could'nt find a similar one. I also tried to Google it but in vain. Maybe, just maybe, I found a new species? Well, Palawan is known for many endemic species.

I suppose once the rainy days come in again, the cobra-like frog might appear together with the many kinds of frogs in our place near some stands of bangkal (Nauclea orientalis). A friend advised that I should take at least a specimen and preserve it for identification. I just quipped "What if it's the last frog found in this place?" But then I remembered that frogs can reproduce a lot of eggs, and since considering that the vegetation next to our place are left untouched and actually enhanced since we saw that frog, there is a high probability of seeing it once again with some effort. It must be hiding just somewhere among the leaf litter and debris. 

The frog measures about 12 cm long and 6 cm wide with its bloated abdominal region and is greenish in color.

The first impression of seeing a cobra suggests that this frog may have adopted such appearance as part of its adaptation to our place where many snakes could be found and where cobra appears once in a while. Our house lies next to a secondary forest.