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Archive for the ‘Rainforest Frogs’ Category

Many thanks, and a red-eyed tree frog for you (rerun)

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Susan and I are hosting family and friends this week and so will be re-running a few posts from this past year. It’s been a HOT summer in the NYC area. We thought we’d re-post a holiday post to remind us of cooler days ahead. Also, if you’re a teacher this is a nice little poster to put up in your classroom in September. This post is originally from November 2009.

We have a lot to be grateful for at FROGS ARE GREEN. We’ve received over 10,000 visitors since we started the blog back in May. (Update: we are now up to 4500 visitors a month!). We are so grateful for your comments and for your participation in our blog.

As a token of our thanks, Susan designed a poster of our mascot, the Red-Eyed Tree Frog, that you can download and print out for FREE (in three different sizes). We hope you enjoy it and will put up a copy at your home, school, or office to spread the message about our amphibian friends.

Don’t forget to check our galleries of our photo contest photos, wonderful frog art from kids, and photos of wild backyards! (Click on the pictures in the right column of the blog. Feel free to send us your pictures to be included, too!)

Click here and it will take you to the download page.

Update 8/10: We have two contests going on right now—a photo contest and a kids’ art contest. Summer is a good time to take pictures of frogs and to do some drawing, so please consider entering! See Contest link at top of page.

Tags: free educational materials for teachers, free poster, free poster red-eyed tree frog, frog classroom poster, frog educational materials, Learn about Frogs, rainforest frog poster, Rainforest Frogs, red-eyed tree frog
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Why Did a Million Frogs Cross the Road (and other frog news)

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

We’ve been preoccupied with the Gulf Oil Spill the last few weeks and are behind on the latest amphibians news. Here are a couple of stories to bring you up to date. Thanks, Gail and Rafi, for letting us know about these frog stories!

Greek Frogs on the Move

This past week a million frogs swarmed across the Egnatia highway near the town of Langadas, some 12 miles (20 kilometers) east of Greece’s second largest city, Thessaloniki.

According to Giorgos Thanoglou, chief of traffic police in Thessaloniki, a section of the road was closed after three cars skidded off the road when the drivers tried to dodge the frogs.

Why did millions of frogs cross the road? They were probably hungry. They have been migrating from a nearby lake to look for food.

Pinocchio the Frog

A Pinocchio-nosed frog is among the newly identified species discovered during an recent expedition to Indonesia’s remote Foja Mountains.

The long-nosed frog, a tree frog, was discovered by accident. It hopped into the researchers’ campsite where herpetologist Paul Olivertree found it sitting on a bag of rice. The frog has a long spike on its nose that points upward when the male is calling but deflates and points downward when he is less active.

In addition to the pinocchio-nosed frog and other unique species such as a gargoyle-faced gecko and the world’s smallest wallaby, the researchers also found innumerable bird species, including a giant northern cassowary (a large flightless bird with a helmet that resembles a dinosaur), birds of paradise, parrots, cockatoos, lorikeets, and hornbills.

This area of the rainforest in the Foja Mountains is so isolated that even forest-dwelling people haven’t ventured there. “As a result, wildlife was abundant and unwary,” says Bruce Beehler, a senior research scientist at Conservation International, in a dispatch from the field, as reported in a Christian Science Monitor article. “The dawn chorus of birdsong and the rattle of katydids were deafening. There is nothing like it!”

Researchers with Conservation International and the National Geographic Society hope the documentation of such unique, endemic biodiversity will encourage the government of Indonesia to bolster long-term protection of the area, which is classified as a national wildlife sanctuary.

You can see the Pinocchio-frog and the other newly discovered species in this slide show and on the National Geographic site.

We find the stories of newly discovered Lost Worlds fascinating and hope they inspire people to protect these last vestiges of pristine rainforest, areas of awe-inspiring biodiversity.

Have we missed any other interesting amphibian stories? If so, please don’t hesitate to send them on to us!

Tags: biodiversity rainforest, Conservation International Indonesia, Foja Mountains Indonesia, frog migration, frogs in Greece crossing highway, Greek frogs, Indonesia rainforest conservation, International Year of Biodiversity, National Geographic Indonesia, Pinocchio-nosed frog
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