Helping to bring awareness of the frog extinction crisis and frog conservation efforts
Take a leap! Join our cause to raise awareness about the threats frogs face in the world's changing environment, and to spread the message that healthy frogs mean a healthy planet for all.
For over 200 million years, ponds, marshes, grasslands, and rain forests have come alive with the calls of frogs. Yet these remarkable and colorful animals are declining at such a rapid rate that they are being called the Earth’s next dinosaurs. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, a third of the world’s amphibian species are threatened with extinction. To read more, click here!
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Our Blog is Carbon Neutral!
"My blog is carbon neutral" is an initiative by the Arbor Day Foundation to plant trees in Plumas National Forest in Northern California. The goal is to reforest 5,500 acres with 792,000 trees.
Do you do fieldwork or amphibian research with a zoo, environmental organization, university, or government agency? If so, please consider writing a guest post for us about your work (@300 words). Email it to us at: info@frogsaregreen.com.
We’re happy to feature this guest post by Meghan Bartels from the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project in celebration of leaping frogs. Don’t miss the wonderful song below by Alex Culbreth.
The real purpose of leap day may be to keep the calendar aligned with the seasons, but here at the Panama Amphibian Conservation and Rescue Project, we’d like to believe the day is designed to honor our favorite leapers. To celebrate, we’ve put together some fun facts about frog leaping.
Frog Leaping courtesy Brian Gratwicke & Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project
Not all frogs can leap, or even hop. The desert rain frog (Breviceps macrops) has legs that are too short to hop. Instead, it walks.
Male frogs of the genus Pipa are known to defend their territory by jumping at and then wrestling other males.
The New Guinea bush frog (Asterophrys turpicola) takes jump attacks one step further: before it jumps at a strange frog, it inflates itself and shows off its blue tongue.
Stumpffia tridactyla are normally slow-moving critters, but when they’re startled they can abruptly jump up to 8 inches. That doesn’t sound very far, but these little guys are less than half an inch long!
The Fuji tree frog (Platymantis vitiensis) may be the leaping stuntman of the frog world. Each time it leaps, it twists in the air—sometimes even 180 degrees—to throw predators off its trail.
The Larut torrent frog (Amolops larutensis) gets its name from a nifty leaping trick: it can jump into a fast-moving stream and back to its usual perch, the underside of a rock, without being affected by the current.
Similarly, the parachuting red-eyed leaf frog (Agalychnis saltator) gets its name because it speeds to mating opportunities by jumping from trees with finger-and toe-webbing spread wide.
The record for longest jump by an American bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) recorded in a scientific paper is a little over 4 feet. But scientists who went to the Calaveras County Fair, which Mark Twain’s short story made famous for frog jumping, found that more than half the competitors bested that record—and one jumped more than 7 feet in one leap!
The Guinness Book of World Records doesn’t include any frogs for their leaping ability. But it does track human performance in frog jumping (jumping while holding one’s toes). There are records listed for the longest frog jump and the fastest frog jumping over 10 and 100 meters.
In honor of leap day celebrations being coordinated globally by Amphibian Ark, the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project made this video for a frog song written by Alex Culbreth.
I imagine in the early days of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg was not thinking about how his innovative new social networking site might help wildlife. But being globally connected by social media can speed the spread of information and help in conservation efforts.
Because up to one-third of all amphibians are endangered and many species are on the brink of extinction, it makes sense to take advantage of the incredible power of social media to help amphibian conservation efforts in an efficient and cost-effective way.
We’ve recently learned about a new project called The Global Amphibian Blitz , an on-line information sharing hub for non-professional naturalists and biologists to track and record sightings of amphibians around the world. This information will then help professional researchers to document and determine where conservation efforts are most needed. It also seems to be a great way for those who care about frogs and other amphibians to connect with each other.
If you’re an amateur herpetologist, please consider becoming a part of the Global Amphibian Blitz. The YouTube video below explains how to participate in the project:
