Wednesday, December 17, 2008
It's so skinny!
Well, this frog is just a little skinny! Judging from its pattern, it's probably a brown Northern Leopard frog, which is a native Rana Pipiens in the northern part of the U.S., here in Minnesota.
Actually, this frog came to my pond before the green one which I called it "Shriek". As you can see, "Shriek" has the camouflage in the algae filled water; and the brown one can be totally hidden against the dead wood. Unfortunately, the brown one disappeared after staying in the pond for a couple of weeks... don't know if it got caught by raccoons or other animals or simply moving on. Hope it's the latter.
One may ask if both frogs are Northern Leopard frogs, does that mean one is male and the other is female? Not necessarily. It's just this species has two different color. See these two links for more information:
http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snapshots/frogs_toads/northernleopardfrog.html
http://www.nativeecosystems.org/species/northern-leopard-frog/index_html/
I live about a quarter mile away from two mid-size ponds, these frogs were probably wandering around the neighborhood and found a small pond to escape the heat wave. As the article suggests in the website, they like to hang around in grasslands and meadows.
As I said early, they like to stay in the pond during the day, but disappear in the evening and at night. Somehow, they came back the next day.
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