Monthly Archives: November 2010

11/24/10

GREEN FRIDAY – Frog Gifts for the Holidays

Although this Friday is Black Friday, we’d like to offer an alternative: GREEN FRIDAY—a day to order some wonderful frog gifts online—no pushing and shoving at the big box stores requiredl!  Enjoy!

FROG BOOK

Frog by Thomas Marent

Frog by nature photographer Thomas Marent features over 400 truly stunning images of frogs and other amphibians. A beautifully designed and produced book (published by DK), Frog is guaranteed to turn anyone into a frog enthusiast.

FROG PUZZLE

For kids ages 9-12 (and for puzzle-loving adults) here’s a good project for a winter’s day—a 300-piece Ravensburger puzzle of colorful poison dart frogs.

FROG CALENDAR

A gorgeous mini-calendar for frog lovers.

ADOPT A FROG

Adopting a frog or other animal from the World Wildlife Fund is a great gift for a child or an adult who cares about animals.

For a $50 adoption, you will receive:

  • plush frog
  • adoption certificate
  • full-color photo of a red-eyed tree frog
  • spotlight card full of fascinating information about your frog

Ipad/Ipod Apps

If you’re planning to buy your loved one a new ipod or ipad, why not fill it with a few frog or amphibian apps! Refer to our recent post on apps.

screenshot from the FROGS! app

SAVE THE FROGS totebag:

Forget plastic bags. Do your shopping with this cool eco-friendly Save the Frogs totebag and help support a great amphibian conservation organization.

PLUSH FROG

Here’s a cute frog to cuddle with: Ty Pluffies Pond Frog

CLOTHES FOR KIDS and ADULTS

Frogs Are Green Tees

Send a positive eco-message with our It Is Easy to be Green T-shirt with art by internationally renowned illustrator Paul Zwolak. Available in kids and adult sizes. (Proceeds go to amphibian conservation organizations.)

FROG SLIPPERS

We’re not sure we can resist buying these cozy frog slippers for the women in our lives.

FROG GIFTS FOR BABY

Happy Blankies

When you buy a blanket from Happy Blankie, one is also donated to a child in need. The blankies, available in different sizes, are made with luxuriously plush “minky” dot fabric, trimmed and back with silky, charmeuse satin.

ANGEL DEAR PILLOWS, BLANKETS, AND ACCESSORIES FOR BABY

Angel dear features cashmere-soft baby blankets, rattles, clothes etc. I have the frog pillow below, which has been adopted by our new “baby” (an 8-month-old kitten) as her preferred place to nap. It is unbelievably soft and cuddly!

Frogs Are Green Onesie

Let the youngest member of your family spread the word about our amphibian friends with a Frogs Are Green Onesie. (Proceeds go to amphibian conservation organizations.)

POSTERS

This year at Frogs Are Green a couple of amazing artists have donate their work to help our cause.

Children’s book illustrator Sherry Neidigh donated her art for this lovely poster—A Frog’s Dream: Save Our Home. (Proceeds go to amphibian conservation organizations.)

Paul Zwolak donated his art for this poster —It Is Easy Being Green. (Proceeds go to amphibian conservation organizations.)


STOCKING STUFFERS

Frog key chain

My husband gave me this frog key chain, which has a button activated bright LED light and makes “Ribbet” sounds. Occasionally I bump my purse and my keychain starts ribbeting, and I enjoy seeing people’s reactions!

11/19/10

10 Frogs Handsome Enough to Kiss

While researching our post The 10 Weirdest and Most Unusual Frogs on Earth , we found so many beautiful frogs we decided to give them their own post. Below are 10 of the handsomest princes of the amphibian world.

1. Red-Eyed Tree Frog (Agalychis callidryas)

This frog might be called The Planet’s Most Beautiful Frog. It has been a pin-up on dozens of wildlife calendars and cards. But its beauty has a purpose—to help it to survive. When at rest, the frog’s eyes are closed. But if disturbed, the sudden appearance of its bright red eyes may startle a predator for a second or two—enough time for the frog to leap away. With its large toe pads and long thin limbs, it can climb trees easily. The Red-Eyed Tree Frog lives in tropical forests from southern Mexico through much of Central America. We used this frog on a poster we created to help spread awareness of the global amphibian crisis (you can download the poster for free):

Red-eyed Tree Frog from IStockPhoto.com

2. Golden toad (Bufo periglenes)

The Golden Toad became extinct 30 years after its discovery in 1976. They were found only in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve of Costa Rica, where hundreds would breed in shallow forest pools. The Golden Toad has become a symbol of  the plight of frogs and toads worldwide—we don’t want other amphibians to suffer the same fate as this beautiful creature.

Golden toad, photo by Charles H. Smith, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

3. White’s tree frog (Litoria caerula)

These handsome frogs seem to have a perpetual smile on their faces. White’s tree frogs are often kept as pets, but they are happiest when left alone in their native home: the woodland and scrub close to water in northeast Australia and New Guinea.

courtesy of www.frognet.org

4. Strawberry poison dart frog (Dendrobates pumilio)

This frog has a bright red head and body speckled with black spots. Because of its blue legs, it is also called the Blue Jeans Frog. Like many brilliantly-colored animals, the frogs’ bright color serves as a warning—Don’t eat me or you’ll be sorry! It forages on the forest floor eating small ants and termites, from which it derives the chemicals needed to synthesize the poison. It lives in tropical rainforests of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama.

5. Ranitomeya amazonica

A recent report from the World Wildlife Fund highlighted the amazing discoveries of the past decade in the Amazonian biome. According to the report, between 1999 and 2009 more than 1,200 new species of plants and vertebrates were discovered in the Amazon – a rate of one new species every three days – confirming the Amazon as one of the most diverse places on Earth.  Ranitomeya amazonica, another beautiful poision dart frog , is one of the most extraordinary of these newly discovered species. Its main habitat is lowland moist forest near the Iquitos area in Peru.

photo copyright AFP/HO/File/Lars K

6. Malagasy Rainbow Frog (Scaphiophryne gottlebei)

One of the most beautiful of the Madagascan frogs, the Malagasy Rainbow Frog  is adapted for a burrowing lifestyle. It is able to live under the ground for up to 10 months.  But it also has claws on its forefeet to help it cling to vertical canyon walls to escape floods or predators.  Unfortunately thousands of these frogs are captured every year for the pet trade.

image from Wikipedia, by Franco Andreone

7. Venezuelan Glass Frog (Cochranella helenae)

This lovely frog, native to the subtropical or tropical most lowland forests and rivers of Venezuela has translucent skin, to help hide it among the leaves.

Photo by Cesar Luis Barrio Amoros, courtesy of Amphibian Ark

8. Tiger frog (Hyloscritus tigrinis)

The Tiger Frog was discovered in 2007 in Southwestern Colombian. Little is known about the frog except that it is not believed to be toxic. Rather with its bright coloring, the frog seems to be mimicking other poisonous animals to deter predators. This gorgeous frog is threatened by destruction of the forests where it lives.

photo copyright Francisco Jose Lopez-Lopez, courtesy of www.arkive.org

9. Harlequin frogs (Atelopus varius)

Harlequin frogs are usually black or brown with spots or streaks that can be a combination of yellow, orange, red, blue, or green.  They live in the moist, tropical forests in Central and southwestern South America. About two-thirds of over 110 species of these brightly-colored frogs have vanished since the 1980s. Their decline is attributed to the destruction of their native forests, collection by the pet trade, and fungal infection (chytrid fungus).

image copyright Forrest Bren for the New York Times

10. Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica)

The Wood Frog’s beauty is more subtle that that of its tropical cousins, yet its colors seems to mimic the color of rocks, bark, and fallen leaves in the forests in which it lives.  This frog is America’s most northernmost species, ranging from northeast USA to the Arctic Circle in Alaska and Canada. Wood Frogs have already begun hibernating. First they find a place under the leaf litter or in a crack in a log or rock to settle for their winter nap. They’ll slowly begin to freeze as soon as temperatures reach the freezing point. Then the frog’s blood will stop flowing, its lungs, heart and muscles will stop functioning, and ice will fill the body cavity: they will go from frog to frogsicle, until they begin to thaw in the warm temperatures of spring.

Wood frog, photo by John Rounds

Some of the information from this post came from Frogs and Toads (a Golden Guide) by Dave Showler, illustrated by Barry Croucher/Wildlife Art Ltd.

11/10/10

Bullfrogs and other Super Species – Will They Soon Dominate Our Planet?

Super species are the phenomenally successful invasive creatures—animals, plants, and microbes—that are dominating ecosystems around the globe. Feral pigs are relentlessly trampling across Europe, North America, and Australia. Jellyfish are dominating the world’s oceans, clogging fishing nets. Not to mention the invasive species that are in our own backyards:  house sparrows and eastern gray squirrels.

In Super Species: The Creatures That Will Dominate the Planet (Firefly Books, published October 2010) Garry Hamilton details the fascinating stories of the species that seem to have won the natural selection sweepstakes. Some of these super species include the European green crab, the giant African land snail, the Argentine ant, nutria, zebra mussels, the chytrid fungus, and killer algae.

One of the species he describes, the invasive American bullfrog, especially concerns us at Frogs Are Green. Hamilton contends that bullfrogs are more invasive than Australia’s notorious cane toads. The reasons are many—bullfrogs were shipped around the world for use as biological control agents, as pets, or for sport.

Frog farms have also led to their introduction to nonnative areas. In the late 1800s after gold miners out West ate their way through native frogs, entrepreneurs imported American bullfrogs from back East to satisfy the increasing demand. Eventually farming bullfrogs spread to other parts of the world as well.

As Hamilton describes it, bullfrog farming isn’t easy and many of the frogs in these “farms” were let loose. Most frogs wouldn’t have survived. But like many invasive species, bullfrogs are highly adaptable. Bullfrogs like deep, stable, non-moving aquatic habitats. This describes many human-modified environments: reservoirs, farm ponds, irrigation channels, and even garden water features.

Bullfrogs can survive through cold Ontario winters and the extreme heat of Southern U.S. summers. Female bullfrogs can produce between 6000 and 7000 eggs and as they mature, up to 25,000 eggs per clutch. As carnivorious amphibians, they prey on fish, water beetles, snails, turtles, bats, voles, ducklings, snakes, lizards, and salamanders.

Bullfrogs compete with and prey on native frogs. This is one of the contributing factors to the worldwide decline of amphibians. Bullfrogs may also be helping to spread the deadly chytrid fungus, which is devastating frog populations around the world.

Attempts to deal with invasive bullfrogs have been challenging. But scientists have found that their numbers are fewer in waterways that haven’t been altered by people. As Hamilton writes, “By changing the physical parameters of a freshwater wetland, humans also change the playing field for all life-forms in the ecosystem, and this results in a cascade of ecological readjustments.”

The answer, Hamilton contends, is not to use the old methods such as killing the frogs and draining ponds. Rather, he says that in order to save native frogs, we need to save their habitats. Altering habitats is conducive to an invasion of bullfrogs.

I had mixed feelings reading about invasive bullfrogs. I like coming across them in ponds in the woods of upstate New York (one of their original habitats), their eyes peering just above the water, as they croak a bass jug-a-rum sound. One of my favorite frog books, The Frog Book, written in 1906 by naturalist Mary Dickerson, describes the bullfrog:

If we go rowing on river, lake, pond or park lagoon,  some moonlit night late in late June, we are certain to hear the deep-toned call of the Bullfrog many times. Coming as it does at unexpected intervals  and from unexpected directions, it seems startlingly weird in the quiet of the night. For June nights are quiet. The insect orchestras are not in full swing and the frog choruses have disbanded.

During Dickerson’s time, bullfrogs were less common than other frogs. At that time, they had many natural predators to keep them in control: snakes, otters, hawks, owls, herons, and turtles, and frog farming was mainly in the future. But human intervention tipped the balance.

In Super Species, Hamilton documents the story of many species like bullfrogs in which human intervention and alterations of habitats led to an imbalance. But his tone isn’t hysterical. Some invasive species like the plant kudzu, he contends, don’t actually have much of an impact on local biodiversity despite alarmist news stories. These species may actually be creating a new biosphere from the “rubble of our own destruction.”

This review is part of Ecolibris’s  Green Books Campaign.  Today at 1:00 p.m. ET, 200 bloggers will take a stand to support books printed on recycled or FSC-certified paper by simultaneously publishing reviews of 200 such books. By turning a spotlight on books printed using environmentally-friendly paper, Ecolibris wants to raise the awareness of book buyers to this issue and to encourage them to take it into consideration when purchasing books.

11/3/10

Goliath Frog – The World's Biggest Frog

Most frogs can fit in the palm of your hand, or even on the tip of your finger. But the Goliath frog (Conraua goliath), the world’s largest frog, may grow up to 3 feet long when it is stretched out and can weigh as much as a newborn baby, about 7 lbs (3.2 kg).

A Goliath frog with young friends (from Marginalia.ako.net.nz)

The Goliath frog’s greenish brown color helps to hide it among wet moss-covered rocks in fast-flowing rivers in the dense coastal rainforest of Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea in western Africa. Unlike most other frogs and toads, Goliath frogs have no vocal sac and so courtship does not involve displaying any calls. They mainly eat crabs, but will also eat insects and smaller frogs. The Goliath frog can live up to 15 years.

Because Goliath frogs live in such a small area of the rainforest, they are highly vulnerable to habitat loss through logging and clearance of forest for agricultural land. The construction of dams threatens the breeding habitat of these frogs. The frogs have been heavily collected for zoos and the pet trade, but Goliath frogs don’t breed or survive well in captivity. Goliaths are also highly prized as delicacy by local people.

The IUCN (The International Union for Conservation of Nature) sites Goliath frogs as an endangered species because of a 50% decline in population size in the last three generations.

goliath frog

Goliath frog image from animals.uua.cn

Mbo tribesmen believe the frogs are wizards of sacred waterfalls. The only real hope for these amphibian wizards is the preservation of their rainforest home.