Northern Cricket Frogs, Green Treefrogs, and Cope’s Gray Treefrogs are all active and calling. The daily showers that we’ve been experiencing lately have moved this family of small frogs to think of romance, or at least to mate.
Northern Cricket Frogs (Acris crepitans) can be difficult to locate, even as they call. Their small size (about 1″-1.5″) and coloration help them blend in with their surroundings.A male Green Treefrog (Hyla cinera) perches on a willow branch ready to call out to potential mates.A Cope’s Gray Treefrog (Hyla Chrysoscelis) clings to the side of a pine tree waiting for the night to come. Dark heavy rain clouds and spring thunder storms may also bring out these little frogs in search of a mate.
So, when you’re hiking around the trails listen for the “click-click-click” of the cricket frog, the “quonck-quonck-quonck” of the green treefrog, and the bird-like “berrrrrrilll, berrrrrilll” of the gray treefrog.
Is the Cope’s Gray Treefrog the same kind of frog that Satyrus tried to squash?
/keepers/2009/09/09/explore-the-wild-in-the-lemur-exhibit/
Greg Dodge says:
Author
If I’m thinking of the story you told me earlier, yes.
There are two gray treefrogs in North Carolina, the Cope’s Gray Treefrog and the Common Gray Treefrog. The two are identical in appearance differing only in their voice and the fact that the Common Gray Treefrog has twice the chromosomes as the Cope’s. Cope’s is also the more widespread of the two and happens to occur here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Common Gray Treefrog is much more restricted in its range and is not “supposed” to occur in our area.
Since testing the chromosomes is not something that I, or most of us, can do, we have to rely on the frog calling to identify gray treefrogs as to species.
Is the Cope’s Gray Treefrog the same kind of frog that Satyrus tried to squash?
/keepers/2009/09/09/explore-the-wild-in-the-lemur-exhibit/
If I’m thinking of the story you told me earlier, yes.
There are two gray treefrogs in North Carolina, the Cope’s Gray Treefrog and the Common Gray Treefrog. The two are identical in appearance differing only in their voice and the fact that the Common Gray Treefrog has twice the chromosomes as the Cope’s. Cope’s is also the more widespread of the two and happens to occur here in the Piedmont of North Carolina. Common Gray Treefrog is much more restricted in its range and is not “supposed” to occur in our area.
Since testing the chromosomes is not something that I, or most of us, can do, we have to rely on the frog calling to identify gray treefrogs as to species.
I like the onomatopoeia, Greg.