Hi, I recently learned that leatherback sea turtles consistently maintain a higher body temperature than their surroundings despite being a reptile(!) Are there any frogs like that? Or frogs that have interesting thermoregulation?
Leatherbacks are able to do that by virtue of their large body mass and carefully controlled bloodflow and activity. This would not be possible in an amphibian, as far as I know, because the skin is an important respiratory organ, and if you stop putting blood there in order to avoid it getting cold, you reduce the amount of oxygen you can get very substantially. Most amphibians also do not move actively enough to generate enough of their own heat for it to be possible to regulate with changes in activity. But this might have been different for some of the giant temnospondyls and lepospondyls, back in the day.
