Frogs? You got frogs?

If you are situated, as we are, in the upper Midwest, it's too early for frogs. If your tadpoles are tiny( about 1/2 inch long) and black, what you got are American toads. Be very happy. Toads are non-toxic and while courting, sound like crickets on steroids, emitting a long, drawn-out chirr. Their eggs are laid in long, gelatinous strands. They will mature into useful and handsome garden companions who will hide in your underbrush and eat all your garden slugs. They don't taste very good, and your fish will leave them pretty much alone. They are not disease carriers.

Later on, as the weather warms up, you may get frogs. The egg mass is a large clump, the tads are about i.5 to 2 inches long, and koi find them delicious. Green frogs are native here and are recognizable by skin folds extending from their tympanum down along their flanks to their bottom. They are beneficial insect-eaters. Their song is a "glump" or "boing".

Bullfrogs sound like a disappointed donkey or a low-pitched bass fiddle. They get big, and in their niche are an apex predator, able to catch and eat baby birds, small rodents and all your goldfish. Their tads are large and heavily speckled. They are a brighter green than green frogs and have a blunter nose and a smooth back. If you've got these, they need to be introduced to Mr. Raccoon or otherwise escorted away from your pond. One of our naturalist friends once remarked that the only reason that bullfrogs do not rule the world is because raccoons find them tasty. Big koi will slurp the tadpoles up like gumdrops.

It's the Great Circle of Life, writ small.

BTW, if what you have are indeed greens, and you are local to the Chicago area, please let us know. Our resident population is pretty scarced-out and we'd love an egg mass or a buncha tads.

 

Bob