A frog on the author’s property in 2021 (Photo by Jay Paul)
I worried a lot about the baby tree frogs.
There were so many in the pond last summer. Fifteen, then 50. Every morning I found newly metamorphosed froglets lounging on the leaves of the pickerel weed.
Each was the size of a fingernail. They had tiny scowls, chubby tums and translucent toes. Most were green as a lime. A few were bronze. In the sun, they shone like gems.
Some dragged tails behind them, long as a train or short as a rudder. I wished they would return to the water and wait. I thought they might bake.
The froglets hardly moved. They did not seem to eat. They did not dodge my shadow. They only crouched together in small clusters. In a day or so, they left.
That killed me. Left! They were too delicate to survive a Virginia July.
The entire month was a long, slow loss. The number of froglets perched on the pickerel weed dwindled day by day.
I never saw them again, once they crossed the seven stones of the patio path. They simply vanished into the modest forest in the front yard.
Always I wondered: Where had they gone? How many would live?
My mourning was maternal. I had scooped the eggs to safety, away from the ravening goldfish. I’d fed the tadpoles lettuce and spinach. When they began to metamorphose, I gave them branches to grip with their spindly limbs. And now they were gone.
An abundance of amphibians in the author’s yard (Photo by Melissa Scott Sinclair)
This spring, I worry again. I expect the same abundance of froglets, once the adults come down to mate. But the days are cold and rainy, then hot and dry, and neither is right for romance. I hear the frogs calling high in the trees, but nothing happens. I fear something is wrong.
I call Jason D. Gibson, associate professor of biology at Patrick & Henry Community College, who has spent 25 years studying Virginia’s amphibians. I confess my concerns.
“They’re just so fragile,” I say.
He corrects me. Tree frogs aren’t fragile at all. “They’re what we consider anti-fragile,” he says.
This is a new word for me. Here’s what it means: “If they’re stressed, they actually get stronger,” he says. In this respect, tree frogs are no different from humans. “We’re anti-fragile,” he adds. “We actually grow from stress.”
I take heart.
It’s not that they’re invulnerable, he clarifies. But Virginia’s tree frogs are hardy creatures who have managed to thrive despite — even because of — human disturbances. To a tree frog, ditches and tire ruts are excellent inventions, ideal for breeding.
In the Richmond area, we mostly have the Cope’s gray tree frog. It’s identical to the gray tree frog, except the gray has a slower trill and, owing to some long-ago genetic oops, twice as many chromosomes.
They are compact, well-camouflaged creatures who spend the days calling and napping and the nights hunting insects — both at ground level and high in the trees. You may spot one clinging to your deck or tucked into a flowerpot.
They’re capable of surviving the harshest summer, Gibson says. Like a toad, they have bumps and channels on their skin that serve to disperse water over their body, aiding absorption. Warts on the ventral (belly) side increase the surface area of the skin, enabling a tree frog to soak up all the water it needs from morning dew. They drink through their belly, not with their mouths.
Not only that, but these frogs use their bladders for water storage in addition to waste excretion. “When you look at a gray tree frog, it’s a water conservation machine,” he says.
They have other superpowers, too. Their extra-long legs and sticky toe pads allow them to ascend 30 to 40 feet. They can change color: To shed heat they turn whitish, and to retain heat they take on a darker shade. Sometimes, they’re a leafy green. In cold conditions, they make their own glycerol antifreeze or flood their circulatory systems with glucose to prevent ice crystals from forming. “They’re pretty amazing creatures,” Gibson says.
Growing tadpoles (Photo by Jay Paul)
What about predators? “Just about anything wants to eat a frog,” he says: birds, snakes, raccoons. Tadpoles are snacks for spiders, diving beetles and dragonfly larvae.
In that regard, the tree frog is not so lucky. But neither is it defenseless. The frogs have brilliant orange coloration concealed on the insides of their legs. When threatened, they can flash this color to startle a predator. It even works on humans. Gibson has seen people reflexively drop a tree frog when it stretches out its legs.
The only implacable predator is the car. “They just get murdered on roads,” he says.
Frogs end up smashed because they’re drawn to streetlights or because the forest is across the street from a breeding pond.
Despite the vehicular frogicide, the Cope’s gray tree frog is doing just fine. “They’re one of the most common frogs that you can find,” Gibson says.
Then why, I demand, are they not here? Last year, the frogs were screaming and hooking up as if Leon Bridges were playing Live at the Pond, and now nothing is happening at all.
Gibson says this is normal. While the males holler incessantly from the pond on rainy evenings, they only mate at the time of the female’s choosing. They reproduce via external fertilization, as the male grasps the female in an embrace called amplexus.
One female can lay 2,000 eggs — but not all at once. She spaces them out, choosing different partners and places, hoping to maximize her chances. “They’re long-lived animals,” he says, which means they can be relaxed about reproduction. They’re also “bust-or-boom breeders.” Some years, froglets abound. Some years, they don’t.
I feel at peace. The tree frogs are doing exactly what they have done for millennia. They do not need me to worry about them.
Then, on the first Thursday of June, a storm sweeps through. As I watch the torrents from the porch, I hear frogs calling.
And in the morning, there are eggs.
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