Frog Mystery Solved
08.29.10
Remember this handsome dude living in our goldfish pond from a number of weeks back? Weeeeeell, after a heck of a lot of researching and matching up this fact and that fact, I’ve finally solved the mystery of what kind ‘he’ is.
There were 4 possibilities, a pig frog, a green frog, a southern crawfish frog, or a bullfrog. Right off the bat I could rule out the pig frog and the green frog by the voice and the lack of dorsal folds. Could pretty much rule out southern crawfish frog too because of the same reasons, but there were other things that were reminiscent, like the spots and mottling and white chin and belly and small size of the tympanic membrane.
That left bullfrog. Bullfrogs have no dorsal fold, are big, lots of green, the males have a distinctive call, and they have LARGE tympanic membranes. My frog didn’t have a dorsal fold, was big, had the distinctive call… but had negligible tympanic membranes, not much green – mostly gray with mottled spots and stripes. Things just didn’t totally match up to make a definite ID.
Discovered one more clue. Southern crawfish frogs have back feet with webbing that extends only about half way. Bullfrogs’ webbing goes full to the tip of the toes, except for the long middle one. I hadn’t seen my frog’s feet in a spread position… would have to see that while it’s in the water. Most every night when I take the dog out for his last potty before bed, I take a look at the goldfish pond for my frog. Usually I can see ‘him’ sitting on the edge, like in the picture.
A few nights ago I found ‘him’ in the water in an open area with hind feet fully visible. They were fully webbed! BULLFROG!
But what about the teeny tympanic membranes? And the spotty mottling coloration!
A little more study reveled that the coloration was within normal variations and that females had small tympanic membranes and white chins that could be mottled with gray (males had yellow chins). So, looked like I might have a bachelorette bullfrog. Except, this frog did male bullfrog calls. Still more research revealed that the females can and do the calling too sometimes, which really gets things confused and in an uproar during mating season… another story.
So, seems I have a young female bullfrog in my goldfish pond… young because we’ve watched her grow tremendously much over the summer, and because of the mottled coloration. How she got here? Haven’t a clue, but I’m glad she is… I like her.
Now I need to find her a name.