Amphibian+Group

 __Amphibian Group Watershed Paper__
By Jeremy Berman, Ethan Holly, and Michael Rosengart

=__Introduction __=

A frog is an amphibian in the order Anura. It is of the Animalia Kingdom, the Chordata Phylum, and the Class Amphibia. Frogs live a semi-aquatic life in that they can maneuver well in water and also on land. With more than 5,000 species of frogs reported, it is estimated that roughly 88% of all amphibious species are frogs. The structures of the feet and legs is the most common difference from species to species.

A common misconception is that Toads are Frogs are related. They are not. Rather, Toads and Frogs are similar because of evolutionary convergence. Morphologically, Frogs have webbed digits, protruding eyes, long hind legs, and short bodies. Frogs are carnivorous creatures whose history has been traced back to Madagascar 250 million years ago.

A frog's life cycle goes through four stages, the most notable being tadpole and frog. The process, however, starts at the egg stage, continues to tadpole, then goes through metamorphosis, and concludes with adult. Eggs are typically laid in groups of several thousand, groups of which are called frogspawn, in small bodies of water such as ponds, lakes, and even puddles. Frogspawn remain very vulnerable to predators and the majority will be killed before they can become tadpoles.Tadpoles, also called polliwogs, remain in the water, with rare exceptions. Lacking lungs, legs, and eyelids, Tadpoles look and behave much like small fish. Tadpoles, too, are very vulnerable to predators and can be killed quite quickly. A tadpole can go into metamorphosis at times ranging from a week to a year after it hatches. Metamorphosis is usually brief and the result is the frog as we know it.

Mating season is typically in the winter and male frogs will return to the area of their birth to do so. Their frog calls ('ribbit" in English onomatopoeia), which is one of the common identifications of a frog and can be heard up to a mile away, are what attract mates to the males.

The purpose of our project is to observe the life cycle and development of frogs at __Flat Rock Brook__ throughout the school year. We will then do research on frogs' life cycle and see how our observations support what we find.

=**    __Methods and Materials__     ** = =        =       Our project is relatively qualitative. We will make all of our observations just by sight, with the exception of a tape measure, which we will use to estimate the sizes of the frogs we see.

=    **__Watershed Visits (Results)__**      = =        = November : This month, we looked in and around both Quarry Pond and McFadden's Pond to try to find signs of frogs. In Quarry Pond, we did not find any signs of frogs, even though we had seen frogs there during our first visit to Flat Rock Brook. In McFadden's Pond, however, we did find tadpoles swimming around. They seemed to be behaving very similarly to the minnows that were also in the water. At first it was hard to tell the difference between them, because they both had fins and long bodies/tails. We eventually observed that the tadpoles had round "heads" which we now know are their bodies. The long extension behind them is just a tail.

December: When we visited __Flat Rock Brook__ in December, we did not see any life in either pond. Quarry pond was completely frozen over, and there was ice covering many of the streams throughout __Flat Rock Brook__. There was some ice on McFadden's Pond, though it was thin, especially near the dam by the bridge. This allowed us to see through the ice. There was still no sign of life, though.

March: When we visited __Flat Rock Brook__ in March, there were no frogs in or around either pond. One thing, we did notice, though, was that there were air bubbles repeatedly rising from the same spots in the ground. At first, we did not know what to make of them, but we made a guess that there could be something hibernating in the mud. In the past, we had heard about creatures that do that during the winter, so we considered it as a possibility. May (early): We visited __Flat Rock Brook__ again. It was much warmer than it has been any of the other times we had gone. In Quarry Pond, we saw a lot of life including small fish and a snapping turtle. We tried to determine whether what looked like fish were actually tadpoles, though we were unable to tell, because the water was very murky and there was a glare from the sky. After seeing the tadpoles in McFadden's Pond, however, we decided that what we had seen in Quarry Pond looked too different to be tadpoles.

In McFadden's Pond, we had a lot of luck with what we saw. At first what we observed appeared to be a very similar situation to Quarry Pond -- small fish just under the surface of the water, bugs flying all over the place, and another snapping turtle swimming off in the middle of the pond. As we took a closer look, and the sun ducked behind some clouds reducing the glare, we saw that some of what we originally thought were fish were, in fact, tadpoles. They were very distinguishable from the fish, by their large, bulky front ends. They had lost what we originally thought to be fins, but have found out by research to actually be external gills. They were also behaving differently than the fish. Somewhat frequently, a couple of tadpoles would swiftly swim up to the surface of the water, poke their mouths into the air, flash their tails (which had become shorter and more round) and dart back to the bottom, where they would, more often than not, burrow into the mud at the bottom. We speculated that this behavior, which was not exhibited when we first saw the tadpoles, was because they had lost their gills and were now coming up for air.

While we were at the pond, Mike dropped his phone in the water. This page is a tribute to his phone.

Thanks to Mike's loss of the phone, we were able to make the following observations for this month that were done while Mike had gone off on a quest for a net to rescue the phone.

First of all, we observed again, in McFadden's pond, the same repeatedly rising air bubbles that we had seen during prior visits. We were unable to observe any connection between the tadpoles and the bubbles, which was disappointing, because we had hoped that we would find a reason to believe that the tadpoles were there earlier. We were beginning to suspect that the bubbles were insignificant, as we were watching one bubbling spot in particular, when out pops a tadpole from the mud! A cloud of mud filled that area of the water as the tadpole swam away. This was very exciting and a privilege to be able to observe.

After this observation, we noticed that there were a lot of these bubbles coming from under a fairly large pile of leaves under the water, somewhat near the dam at McFadden's pond. As we kept our eyes on the leaves, sure enough, we noticed that many of the tadpoles coming up for air, were coming from the pile as they swam up, and when they darted to the bottom, they burrowed back into the leaves. This led us to wonder, about how many of the tadpoles were actually under all of those leaves. A picture of the leaves is shown below.



The last main observation that we made that day at McFadden's Pond was when the snapping turtle that had been in the middle of the pond swam over to us, and helpfully started kicking around on top of the pile of leaves. It started scaring tons of tadpoles out of their places in the leaves. We guess that there were maybe 40-50 tadpoles in the pile from what we saw. A picture of the turtle is shown below.



May (late): We went to __Flat Rock Brook__ for a second time in May. After seeing so many tadpoles just a week earlier, we were hoping that there would be some frogs there now. We did see many frogs there, though we doubt that they had come from the tadpoles that were there before, as they were substantially larger. Also, Mr. McNeil told us that he had seen some around earlier this month. We were told that they were going to be mostly bullfrogs and that the sex of the frog is determined by how big certain "lobes" were on the frogs. If the "lobes" were bigger than the frogs' eyes, then it was a male, and if they were about the same size as the eyes, then it was a female.

At Quarry Pond, we saw 20 frogs. But we did not search the entire pond. We estimated that there were between 30 and 40 frogs in Quarry Pond. From what we could see, 9 frogs were males and 5 were females. Almost all of the frogs were in the water. There were 2 or 3 that were out of the water. The frogs here were very calm. We could approach them and they did not move. Out of the frogs that we could identify, this is what we came up with: Quarry Pond Frogs. Also, at Quarry Pond, we heard frogs croaking, making a sound similar to a burp or a groaning honk. We originally thought they were goose sounds.

At McFadden's Pond, we saw 14 frogs. Again, we did not search the entire pond. We estimated that there were between 25 and 35 frogs there. Here, 6 frogs were males and 2 frogs were females. Most of the frogs here were on the land or in the mud. The frogs were very fidgety here. Whenever they heard a sound they jumped into the water and swam off. That made it much harder to get measurements on the frogs. Out of the frogs we could identify, this is what we came up with: McFadden's Pond Frogs. Also, when the frogs would jump away, they would make somewhat of a chirping sound. Lastly, when we were by the lower side of McFadden's Pond, in the muddy areas where many of the frogs were, there was a disgusting smell, somewhat like the smell in the container below Ethan's back yard that contains his house's old drain water.

One observation we made at Quarry Pond, which was very exciting, was the discovery of a frog that did not look similar to the bullfrogs we had already seen. With the help of both Mr. McNeil and some of the people who work at __Flat Rock Brook__, we were able to decide that we think it was a mink frog. In contrast to the bullfrogs we were seeing, which were fat, had rounded mouths, and were dark brown, having some spots of dark green, though not much, this other frog was predominantly green, dark green in most spots with a little bit of light green. It also was also very skinny and had speckles all over its body, with stripes on its legs that line up with each other when the leg is in its relaxed, retracted position. We had to decide whether or not we were seeing a mink frog or a green frog, because both closely fit the description. The deciding traits were the lack of a defined ridge down the sides of the frog, the speckles all over the body instead of just the legs, and the extreme extend of the skinniness. Pictures of each of these three types of frogs are shown below:

=Bullfrog Green Frog=

=Mink Frog= (All three images from [|http://www.cortland.edu/herp/keys/frogpix.htm)]

__Observations of Frogs__

At Quarry Pond, the frogs gathered around the banks of the pond, where the water was shallow. But at McFadden's Pond, the fish gathered more in damp muddy areas and on the land.

In general, the female frogs were skinner and shorter than the males. The frogs sat very still in the water. The frogs' eyes were all yellow except for one frog that had orange eyes. Most of the frogs had brown skin. Some had skin that faded from brown to green. Some had black stripes on their legs. Also, there were several frogs that had large humps on their backs.

It was interesting to see the overwhelming number of bullfrogs in the pond, and then to see only one mink frog. It makes us wonder why there is such an imbalance. It would be very helpful if we could get a better look at the tadpoles and be able to distinguish which species each of them belongs to.

=**__Conclusions And Follow Up Research__** =

After doing some reading online about each of the three frogs that could live in Flat Rock Brook, the reason has become apparent why the bullfrog has prevailed, though it is not clear how it got there recently, for if it had been there for a long time, it would have overpowered the other species.

The site used for information on bullfrogs was [|http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/species/bullfrog.html . I keep trying to insert this link and the formatting gets messed up. The url I link it to keeps changing to this. To visit the link, just copy paste the part up until and including the ".html".

It says that a bullfrog is strong and large compared to the mink and green frogs. It is also willing to eat anything that moves and it can get its jaws around. The site warns readers not to keep the bullfrog in a container with others for any reason other than mating, for there is a risk of cannibalism. For this reason, the bullfrog has likely acted as a predator for other species of frog competing in the area, making it hard for their kind to grow past late tadpole/metamorphosis stage.

Using these sites, we were able to learn a bit more about mink frogs: - http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/reptiles_amphibians/frogs_toads/truefrogs/mink.html - http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mnh/nature/frogs/mink.htm

==From these sources, we learned that mink frogs are very jittery, and will be startled by the slightest move. Also they make a short chirping sound in contrast to the burping sound we heard the bullfrogs making. Lastly, they give of a musky odor when threatened or approached. For all of these reasons, we believe that there might be mink frogs living in McFadden's Pond.==

__Bibliography__ "Frogs." __Wikipedia__. Wikimedia Foundation. 1 June 2008 

And for Jeremy: [|!@#$@!%$#!@%@#^$@#%@%%!^!#!#$%@^&&]