Oral birth in the Australian gastric brooding frog Rheobatrachus sUus 2 Preface I have deliberately chosen the title picture to the preface, which shows the oral birth of a young gastric brooding frog (Rheobatrachus situs), to draw the reader's attention to the preface since I wish to explain why the book was written and illustrated in the way it now appears. The book has grown out of the material of a lecture course taking 3 to 4 hours per week each semester that I have given for several years at the Ruhr-University Bochum as the theoretical basis for an intensive 4 week practical course on...