I almost stepped on this bullfrog.
She must have been up partying all night. After the photo session, I realized that Jasmine was much too interested in her. But she could not be budged with stick or shoe, and a scooping operation was well underway before she woke up enough to hop madly away for the ditch.
Previous bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) entries:
Rana-gate
Minty Frog
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My sister emailed me to say that my blog came up #2 in her Google search for "Alabama Toads". I'm not at all an authority on that, but I can give good directions:
Frogwatch USA - links to info and good sound files
Frogs and Toads in Alabama
Some previous frog & toad encounters:
Tuesday - Gray Tree Frog
Green Chair Frog - Green Tree Frog
Night crawling - Fowler's Toad
Frogz - Southern Leopard Frog & Green Tree Frog
Happy Amphibians - Sound file - Fowler's Toads (I think)
Night chorus - Sound file - Spring Peepers
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I wonder if frogs and toads have regional "accents" like birds do.
9 comments:
hello, frog. cool picture!
Dang, what an interesting question! Now I'll have to figure out how to figure it out. Joe's gotta hear this one.
We could record (#*^%!) bullfrogs out here and compare...
We were up on Mount Tam last week and saw bazillions of them in I think it was Bon Tempe Lake. They're invasive here, and among the things that are threatening the local natives like red-legged and yellow-legged frogs.
Joe and I once watched one eat a garter snake. Looked like an epic struggle and then... No snake! Frog gulping!
Frogs on a Plane?
She still has her legs!
Pretty frog! I love frogs. I think they are so cute!
Now THAT is one big frog - and what a beauty!
I have heard that they do have accents.
ok, i'm a dork. i've been digging around for a couple of days looking for an answer to this. personally, i would guess 'yes.' the so-called experts know that bird song is regional; so are dolphin and whale vocalizations and a host of other mammals (elephants, monkeys, etc).
yeah, i know that comparing amphibians and mammals is apples and radishes but from my perspective, if nothing else, sheer evolution would lead to changes in vocalization due to different environments.
others are asking the question: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/biology/courses/w3005/16_dir/
s/he seems to think that frog noises are not regional, because they aren't learned in the way that birds and other mammals are, but these are the questions that the students are supposed to be asking. i'd be interested in reading some of the papers submitted.
Frogs on a plane, yeah! That could be pretty funny. :)
I didn't know that so many animals had accents. The only ones I'm familiar enough with to recognize are birds. The warblers who migrate through here seem to share the same accent, but on birding tapes it's often different.
Funny, Joe had the same guess about frog accents as that Columbia person, because the birds that have regional accents are the ones who learn their songs, as opposed to having them "hard-wired."
Oh, and there's a whole subset of songlore that involves role models and the neighbor daddies.
I've heard some of that on NPR stories. But when you start talking about hardwired stuff, I get to thinking about what might be hardwired in people too. I sometimes wonder if people who remember "past lives" might just be descendants and have some sort of hardwired memory of it. Probably not, but it might explain why so many people think they were Charlesmagne in a previous life, LOL.
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