If the only frog you know is in your throat, let me introduce you to the Tomato Frog, the Borneo Eared Frog and the Fire-bellied Toad. Yes, toads are frogs.

Along with the Waxy Monkey Frog, the Dart Poison Frog and the Smooth-sided Toad, they are waiting for you at the Milwaukee Public Museum. They want to lay their bug eyes on you.

Those eyes, by the way, are pulled into the roof of the mouth when a frog is eating so they can help push food down the frog's throat. And you thought you were cool because you could make milk come out of your nose.

I know this because I got a preview of "Frogs: A Chorus of Colors," the new show at the Milwaukee Public Museum. I'm going to steal a line from the exhibition's publicity and confirm that it is ribbeting.

Here are the basic facts. Frogs come in all sizes and colors, live in all climates and inhabit every continent except Antarctica. They eat everything from mosquitoes to small mammals and each other. If you are a frog, it is a good idea to be popular with the relatives.

The museum's show, which runs through Jan. 2, has gathered 15 of the most interesting species -- there are more than 5,000 -- and given them glass house environments frogs would find cozy. There are rock walls to climb, plants for camouflage and mini-waterfalls to enjoy.

The live frogs are bolstered by informational text blocks, vivid photos and interactive displays and kiosks. You can perform a virtual frog dissection on a touch screen and push buttons to hear the varied chorus of sounds made by different species. The Pig Frog is so named because it sounds like a grunting porker.

As life evolved from water to land, frogs were the first creatures to develop vocal chords. A really loud frog can be heard for a mile.

We naturally think of frogs as sitting in a Wisconsin pond or climbing a tree in a rain forest -- the Waxy Monkey Frog has opposable thumbs -- but there are frogs who would be right at home on the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. Frogs can be found as far north as Alaska, and the North American Wood Frog can survive with 65% of its body water frozen. Even a temperature-induced stopped heart doesn't kill them.

The show includes a skeleton from the world's largest frog species, the West African Goliath Frog. An adult Goliath is as big as a newborn human and can leap 10 feet.

Many frogs defend themselves with their skin, secreting chemicals that can kill even humans if they enter the blood stream. But the toxins also offer the possibility of being valuable in drug research.

Frog chemicals may be used to treat everything from depression to colon cancer. The Phantasmal Poison Frog, found on the slopes of the Andes mountains in Ecuador, secretes a pain killer that is 200 times more potent than morphine, and it is non-addictive.

That critter is part of the Dart Poison Frog species, which provided the toxic chemicals applied to the tips of blowguns by indigenous rain forest hunters in South America. These frogs are the stars of the Milwaukee Public Museum show.

The Dart Poison Frogs are only a few inches long and have such spectacularly colored shiny skin, they look more like painted toys than dangerous amphibians. They would be so cute on your aunt's tchotchke shelf.

Frogs is a timed-entry exhibit.