In light of Steve’s thread about his toad friend I wanted to post a couple pics of my new froggy friends.
The one on the right is Gwendolyn and the other is Camilla.
Here’s a little better picture. Gwendolyn is the uppermost.
The detritus on the wall are the carcasses of dead bugs that have been caught in spider webs.
At first the frogs were a little skittish if I got too close but they’re getting used to me. I love to watch them eat the billions of flying critters that fly around my outside light.
The thing is you don’t actually ever see them catch a bug. There’s a bug and a frog. The frog twitches a little and the bug is gone. Last night Gwendolyn eyeballed a particularly succulent large white moth. Her mouth opened and the moth flew away, apparently behind the shelf out of sight.
“You missed.” I exclaimed.
At that she turned a little and much to my surprise I saw the back end of a pair of white wings sticking out of her mouth. It took a couple swallows but she gulped it down. I was gobsmacked at her incredible accuracy and speed.
There’s a drawback to the whole thing. I usually spray the whole porch and wall with deadly stuff to kill spiders at least once a week. I can’t do that now because I might hurt the frogs. I’m back to using a broom on the spiders.
I used to breed Pacific treefrogs in a small home pond as a child. I wrote up the experience and submitted it to Frogland. It is now part of the web site; http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/species/pacific.html. When my e-mail address was part of the web page, I used to get really cool e-mails from people wanting advice on how to rear their own Pacific treefrogs. The ones from children were really cute! With the advent of web crawlers that harvest e-mails, Frogland removed all the e-mail links. It was an odd experience realizing I was a world expert on the outdoor breeding of Pacific treefrogs. If you want to know how to breed treefrogs in your own yard, I’m quite happy to give advice.
Do you know what I find amazing? It’s that these little frogs, the size of a fifty-cent piece, are so LOUD. On a warm summer night, if one of these critters has managed to get inside your house, you will know it. BEEP BEEP BEEP!
