Category Archives: People Helping Frogs and Toads

02/12/10

A Frog Love Shack

While humans may need flowers, chocolate, and a candlelit dinner to get in the mood for love, amphibians have quite different requirements. The Bristol Zoo Garden in England has designed what it calls the AmphiPod to encourage frog love. The zoo opened this special “love shack” to breed two endangered frog species—the Lemur Leaf frog and the Golden Mantella.

Lemur Leaf Frog ( Hylomantis lemur), Ron Holt, Courtesy Atlanta Botanical Garden

The mating chambers will provide a safe home for these frogs, which are listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of threatened species.

In this BBC video Amanda Parr takes a look around the new facility with the Bristol Zoo’s Curator of Reptiles, Tim Skelton, giving her tour a Valentine’s Day spin.

As Skelton says of the project:

Until a solution is found to help stop the [chrytid] fungus in the wild, the safekeeping and captive management of threatened amphibians is the only way to ensure their long-term survival.

Our new AmphiPod will allow us to keep frogs in a safe, isolated environment, away from any threat of disease, as well as giving our keepers the opportunity to learn the techniques required for the specialist amphibian care we can provide in the AmphiPod. In future we will be able to provide a safe haven to other amphibian species in immediate danger of extinction.

However, the Zoo is still £30,000 short of the target amount which will help pay for the continued cost of running the facility for the next three years. For a Valentine’s gift with a difference, why not make a donation towards the Zoo’s “love shack”?

To find out how you can help, please see the Bristol Zoo Gardens website for more information.

Image: , Lemur Leaf Frog (Hylomantis lemur), Ron Holt, Courtesy Atlanta  Botanical Garden, from the Amphibian Ark site

02/9/10

Giant Salamander: Earth's Largest Amphibian

We confess to paying most of our attention in our posts on Frogs Are Green to the stars of the amphibian world—frogs—and not so much on other amphibians. So to make up for that, we’d like to introduce you to Earth’s largest amphibian—the giant salamander of China and Japan.

BB-Japanese-Giant-Salamander

This creature is considered a living fossil because it hasn’t changed much in 30 million years. To put things in perspective, 30 million years ago our ancestors were little primates hanging from trees. It would be millions of years before some of these primates descended from the trees, and millions of years after that before the first humans.

The giant salamander lives in mountain streams and lakes and can grow up to 6 feet long. It has four digits on its front legs and five digits on its back legs and is covered with a slimy protective mucous. It spends most of its time walking on the river bottom, though it can swim quickly. On land, its small legs won’t carry it and it must drag itself along.

Like many amphibians, the giant salamander is endangered due to habitat loss. Construction of dams converts  their free-flowing stream habitats into standing water or dries them up completely. They are also vulnerable to water pollution from mining activity and farming throughout their range.

Other threats to their habitat includes deforestation around the streams. This exacerbates soil erosion and causes increased runoff and siltation of the streams, reducing water quality and making it difficult for the salamanders to get enough oxygen through their skin. In addition, the giant salamander  is considered a delicacy and is also used in traditional Chinese medicine.*

On the BBC News site, Dr. Takeyoshi Tochimoto, director of the Hanzaki Institute near Hyogo in western Japan, gives a guided tour of this unusual creature.  (“Hanzaki” is the local name for the giant salamander.) After watching this video, however, I have decided not to hug a giant salamander if I ever meet one.  They have a very large mouth and several hundred small teeth on the top and bottom and can bite if angry, causing serious injury. Generally, however, this is a shy and secretive animal and is unfortunately relatively easy to catch.

*Information from BBC Wildlife Finder. Image above courtesy of National Geographic.

01/11/10

The Froglog: A Frog-Friendly Invention

Last summer we received a wonderful photograph taken by Mary Lascelles for our photo contest of a frog (whom she named Fritz) who hung out on the filter line in her pool sunning himself. Luckily, Fritz never fell in the pool.

fritz-mary-lascelles

Unfortunately many frogs do fall in pools and are poisoned by chlorine, which is absorbed into their bloodstream through their permeable skin. Recently on the Mother Nature Network blog, I read about a new invention, called a froglog, that helps frogs and other small animals escape from pools.

The froglog was created by Rich Mason, a wildlilfe biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, who was disturbed that so many frogs and other animals were dying in pools. The froglog is a thick foam tile with angled edges that allow frogs to climb out of the pool. The froglog can also be used in hot tubs, spas, fountains, and backyard ponds.

As Mason writes on his website, due to suburban sprawl, pools are now often built close to the natural habitats of amphibians. He mentions a friend with a pool in Maryland who found over 50 animals trapped in his pool in one night.

Check out this video of frogs and turtles using the froglog escape ramp. And if you have a pool and live in an area with lots of wildlife, definitely consider getting a froglog!

12/20/09

A Frog's Dream…Save Our Home

As the year ends, and before we take a short break for the holidays, we’d like to show you the new poster we’ve created to promote our cause. Proceeds from the sale of the poster will go toward amphibian conservation organizations and toward developing free and inexpensive educational materials for kids.

Poster designed by Susan Newman, Illustration © Sherry Neidigh

Poster designed by Susan Newman, Illustration © Sherry Neidigh

The poster is a unique collaboration between my partner Susan (who is a graphic designer when she isn’t saving frogs) and illustrator Sherry Neidigh. Sherry approached us after seeing our blog and offered to donate one of her illustrations for our use. We were thrilled to receive this exquisite illustration to promote our cause.

Susan played around with various ideas, but what struck her about this illustration was its dreamy quality. She came up with the text, “A Frog’s Dream….Save Our Home.” I think these words are perfect. That frog looks so content immersed in his pond, surrounded by dragonflies and lily pads.

A bit about Sherry:

Sherry has been drawing animals since she was 2 years old. She attended the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida, and has worked for Hallmark Cards.

Sherry’s clients include the National Wildlife Federation (Your Big Backyard), Highlights for Children, Sylvan Dell Publishing, and NorthWord Publisher. She works in gouache, watercolor, colored pencils, airbrush, and pen and ink. Her latest book is Count Down to Fall by Fran Hawk, published by Sylvan Dell Publishers. Sherry lives in Simpsonville, South Carolina, outside of Greenville, with her two dogs, Harper and Bisbee. You can learn more about her by visiting her charming website.

Susan and I are so grateful for the use of Sherry’s beautiful illustration. We hope you love the poster as much as we do. Susan also designed a t-shirt with the illustration. Both are available in our store.

Happy Holidays!

12/1/09

Last Call for Frogs: A Chorus of Colors

In case you’re planning a holiday visit to “the City” (what we locals call Manhattan), we want to remind you to go see the exhibit Frogs: A Chorus of Colors at the American Museum of Natural History before it closes January 3. This traveling exhibit from Clyde Peelings Reptiland is fun and informative, even for the youngest kids. The 200 live frogs are in realistic natural habitats, complete with rock ledges, waterfalls, and live plants. Some of the frogs, especially the poison dart frogs, are amazingly colorful and look like little jewels.

Susan visited the exhibit again with her family and took some photographs of the frogs. I enjoyed the exhibit so much, I’m also going again before the frogs leave New York City.

Argentine Horned Frog at the AMNH, photo by Susan Newman

Argentine Horned Frog at the AMNH, photo by Susan Newman

We  received a behind-the-scenes video from the museum of the feeding and prepping of the frogs:

The exhibit is traveling to MUZEO in Anaheim, California, in February. If you’re planning a trip to Disneyland, definitely take a detour and see the frogs, too!

11/16/09

Frogs Love Autumn Leaves

The falling leaves drift by the window

The autumn leaves of red and gold

—from the song Autumn Leaves

Recently we had a post about how “messy backyards” help wildlife. Since I wrote that post, I came across a wonderful article, “Leaf litter is an Environmental Windfall,” by Master Gardener Vera Strader. She explains why autumn leaves are a boon to wildlife and help enrich the soil.

autumn_leaves-325px

Leaves provide shelter to insects such as earthworms, pillbugs, millipedes, which provides food for toads, frogs, and other small animals. Birds require protein from insects to feed their young. Leaf litter also fosters living soils with huge numbers of soil bacteria, fungi, and nematodes. Strader writes that, “leaves provide a down-like comforter for small animals.”

This past summer, I saw this process occur in my own backyard. I had to clip back all the grape vines on our building’s fire escape for safety reasons. I didn’t get around to getting rid of the pile of leaves and vines until a month or two later. I went to bag the material to throw it away and found dozens of earthworms under it. So I left the pile for the earthworms. Next spring these earthworms will go in my garden (and I’m sure will be a nice snack for some birds, too).

Strader offers practical tips for dealing with fallen leaves. Here are a few:

  • Blow or rake leaves to an unused part of the yard or compost the leaves. (Note: I recently received the Gardener’s Supply catalog, which has a simple wire box that can be used for composting leaves).
  • Keep litter and mulch away from plant stems and stalks to prevent crown rot.
  • On the lawn, use a mulching or rotary lawnmower to shred the leaves, then leave them on the grass to nourish it.
  • Dispose of leaf litter below diseased plants, such as roses, peonies, irises, etc
  • Avoid sending leaves to landfill. Yard waste consumes a huge amount of space and creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

As Strader writes, “Leave the leaves to save time and money, enrich soil, help sustain wildlife, and benefit water and air quality. Mother Nature will thank you.”

By the way, we’ve received some great photos of wildlife-friendly backyards. Just click on the gallery on the right of this post for the wildlife backyard gallery. Feel free to send in photos of your backyard and we’ll post them in our gallery.