My husband was raking the gardens this morning and found this little Northern Leopard Frog [Rana pipiens] buried under a thick layer of leaves and pine needles. It appeared that he was just waking up from a long winter sleep. Typically they over winter in deep water ponds or bury in the mud in smaller ponds.
Northern Leopard Frogs are quite common in the woodlands of Ontario, Canada and are also found in other parts of Canada and the US. They eat insects and worms and even smaller frogs. They are preyed upon by snakes, turtles, birds and small animals such as racoons. They will be breeding in our neck of the woods in the next few weeks. Apparently, the female can lay up to 7,000 eggs! The eggs will hatch into tadpoles in 1-3 weeks, which in turn will morph into frogs in about 3 months.
I didn't know this until today --- apparently there may be medical considerations connected with this frog. Here is a copy/paste from Wikipedia: "The Northern Leopard Frog produces specific ribonucleases in its oocytes. Those enzymes are potential drugs for cancer. One such molecule called ranpirnase (onconase) is in clinical trials as a treatment for mesothelioma and lung tumours. Another called amphinase was recently described as a potential treatment for brain tumors."
This photo is not my usual style, if in fact I even have a style! I tend to go for definition and in this case, it's a bit of an eye test to even find him! lol! However, it does capture a nice memory of a productive and relaxing morning!
@timandelke@buccigrossi@honestabe Well, you guys passed the eye test! lol Thanks very much for your comments. I decided after all of yesterday's deliberations over the primula pic that today's would be whatever caught my eye first. If I did that every day there would be some interesting pics in the album - maybe not photo-worthy but interesting .... ;-)
I love frogs and I like that you took the time to research it. Amazing facts. I can't wait until I find the first frog in my pond. It is just for frogs. :)
@elzibell@bill_d@missvicki Thanks! We have a frog pond too Elzibell, but it's not deep enough for the frogs to survive the winter so with the help of our grandchildren, we catch them and take them down the road to a "real" pond each fall. Lol, Vicki, yes, it was close. The frog seemed to be thawing out and not moving too quickly!
@missvicki HI Vicki, I don't know for sure but when you click the upload button at 365, there's a note mid-page saying you can email photos to a certain address. If you go to picassa and find the email link there, and "export' them from picassa to that email address it might work but i'm guessing you have to do it one pic at a time, in order to assign it to a specific date. Let me know if you figure out if it's possible.
my photos are in picassa, how do I pull them into 365