Frog with 'Giant Penis' Takes Over the Internet; Scientists Say It Might Be an Unformed Leg

This might be the luckiest frog right now. Or maybe not.

A frog with an oversized penis has confused the Internet recently, but scientists have revealed that it's actually a third leg.

Australian Keith Leech shared the image of the frog on Facebook, captioning it with "What the Frog."

Gerry Marantelli from the Australian Amphibian Research Centre insisted it is not a male appendage.

"It's not a penis, frogs don't have them, but penises did evolve from ‘legs' during embryonic development so an extra leg is part way there," he told Buzzfeed news. 

Professor Ross Alford from James Cook University meanwhile told News.au.com that it might be a "tailed frog," which is well known for its penis-esque qualities.

According to British Columbia's Frogwatch Program, the tailed frog is a small frog with a noticeable "tail" that functions as a copulatory organ used to fertilize the eggs of the female internally. Tailed frogs are mostly aquatic, but adults may come out during wet seasons to hunt on land.

So how do frogs copulate if a male frog does not have a penis? During amplexus, the stage where the frogs embrace, the female discharges eggs while the male sheds sperms over the eggs.

"The fertilization is external and in water. So it essential that the sperm should be able to enter the egg before the jelly formation. For this purpose the sperms should remain in as close a contact with egg is possible," explained World of Biology.

This frog is just one of the world's weirdest frogs. Others include the tomato frog, which appears to have a ketchup skin, the glass frog which has a translucent skin that makes you literally see all the organs inside it, the pinocchio-nosed frog which has a spike on its nose that points upward and the Turtle frog which looks like a ybrid of both species, among others.