new frogs

I have a very tiny pond with a tiny stream, but no fish. I bought a pond plant recently, and yesterday, much to my surprise, I had 4 frogs in the pond. I am blocks away from any natural water. I think I identified the frogs as leopard frogs, but I will post a picture to see if the DG folks agree. My question now is that I refill the pond as needed from the garden hose, which has city chlorinated water (I have no fish). Do I need to be concerned about this method of adding water, now that I have these new residents? Could these have come in as eggs or polliwogs with the pond plant? Thanks for any info.

Susan in Minneapolis

It takes a while for tadpoles to develop into full sized frogs, so more than likely they found you and your water supply and didn't come in on your plants (although frog eggs are sticky, so it's possible) Frogs are very useful in your yard and it's eco-system, so be happy they found you. You must be doing something right to have pursuaded them to stop by, and you may even end up with frog eggs and tadpoles of your own fairly soon. If rain fills your stream... great, .....if you are concerned about chlorine, you can get simple pond additives for chlorine removal at places like PetSmart (or online)
Your picture does look like leopard frogs.
If this continues, you may also end up with toads. Frog eggs usually float on the surface for the first day....toad eggs are in long strands tangled in the plants.

Definitely leopard and they are known for traveling quite a distance to find food, so I agree they are from the natural water source you mention. They will leave your pond in fact if they are not finding enough food :(

They are also food for predators. My lepoard frogs and toad babies are being eaten by an Eastern Garter Snake, which incidentally gave birth to a live young right at my feet in the front yard around noon one day last week. My husband got outside just in time to see it, so I have a witness. We've had this snake for a couple of years. It (her we now know) has a favorite rock for sunning by the front pond. Wildlifes' gotta live somewhere. Might as well be here I guess. Luckily I'm not afraid of snakes.

Snapple, what a cool story!

I'd love to have some leopard frogs here in Florida in my backyard pond....I have an abundance of toads and Cuban Tree Frogs ( a menace to society) so would love some good ol US of A frogs!

Snapple,
I bet you are glad it didn't have to be a Cesarean delivery!

Susan

According to the Ohio Dept of Natural Resources they usually give birth to somewhere between 10 and 14 live young. I don't know which number the one we saw was but one was enough! She just writhed a little and out it popped! Momma slithered off first, then the baby went deep into the grass and disappeared. It was about 3 inches long. Mom is on the upper end in size. There was no way I was going to do Lamaze for this snake.

Beautiful frog! I'm hoping that something fun like that discovers my pond.

Crystal

Cool picture of the frog :) I have a few shots I took this morning, BEFORE the rain set in :(

Then I turned around to see one of the waterlilies blooming and there was another frog.....well, first butterfly, next frog.

tootsie,
Both pictures are very well done. Thanks for sharing.

Susan

I had yet another thrilling surprise with the frogs in my tiny pond, in the heart of the loud city. Yesterday I noticed that in addition to the 4 or 5 leopard frogs, there is another species. Looking at the pictures of frogs identified to live in Minnesota, I am guessing it is either a Green Frog (Rana clamitans)

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/reptiles_amphibians/frogs_toads/truefrogs/green.html

or a Wood frog (Rana sylvatica)

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/reptiles_amphibians/frogs_toads/truefrogs/wood.html

Any identification help would be appreciated (the new, unknown, one is the one on the right).

Susan in Minneapolis


This message was edited Aug 13, 2007 1:12 PM

I'm bumping this up to see if anyone has an ID, or at least a guess about what the frog on the right is.

Susan

This site might help you with more pictures: http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?recnum=AR0026
I think I noticed that you have 17 varieties of frogs in your state. I wish I knew more about frogs. Good luck.

What fun to find this thread, as we are in the process of learning
more about the giant flock of what we're pretty sure now are Leopard
Frogs.

Each day I stand at the edge of the pond and count as many as I
can see, which is not easy, because it seems they continue to send
out notices to every frog in the valley, come live here, come live here!

Found some very neat information at Wikipedia, too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_frog

Your frog is beautiful! I just love that green. I have 3 frogs and they are black.

Crystal

Black frogs? How cool!