Tachquoak - Fall
International Year of the Frog
In Lenape - Tsquall - Frog,
Tsqualli gischuch - Time When the
Frogs Begin to Croak (Wake Up & Sing)
How to tell
frogs and toads apart.
Frogs have smooth, moist skin; they can hop and jump.
Toads are plump and broad, their skin is bumpy and NO they can
not give anyone warts! With
their shorter hind legs they can only hop, toads can also live in drier
places but frogs need a moist environment.
As the amphibians (from the Greek word
which means to have a double life) grow their skin splits down the back
and they shed it and they eat it.
They are always in danger of being a meal for a raccoon, crane or
other shore or wading birds, skunks, turtles, larger fish and people.
They can hop away, play dead, or blend in with their environment.
Toads have a special self defense.
When frightened or injured the toad can secret a milky poison
they is irritating some kinds of toads are poisonous enough to kill a
dog! They can also puff
themselves up and look much larger and fiercer than they are.
Frogs "drink water" by sitting in wet or
moist places and absorbing it through the skin.
Their long sticky tongues and snap out a catch a wide variety of
insects for its supper, they also love earthworms and minnows.
In the winter they hibernate, snugly
underground or in hollow trees.
Before the massive developments the wet marshy areas and ponds
would be filled with the sound of the "Spring Peepers", tree
frogs so tiny (the size of a penny) it is hard to believe that they can
keep you awake at night with their sounds!
Amphibians - frogs, toads, salamanders
We are all a part of the "Circle of
Life" we stand on it and move within it from before our birth
through the many steps we take in growing to our death and beyond.
What we do effects us and others, not just the two legged ones
like us but plants, animals, birds, fish, amphibians even earthworms!
Not to mention the air, water and land.
As many species on our "Mother Earth" are becoming
extinct we must look around for we too are a part of the circle.
Lichen may appear to be a colored parch on
a moist part of the rock, but to the scientists, it is an "indicator
species." As an indicator
species, it warns them of the extent that acid rain has invaded our
ecosystem. Rising or
declining amounts of algae in a stream or krill in the ocean show the
health of our waters.
Amphibians - frogs, toads and salamanders are also
good indicators, too good!
They are telling us that we are all in trouble!
Worldwide. Within
the past two years there has been a dramatic worldwide amphibian decline
and no one really knows why.
A deadly silent omen, of human wrought
environmental damage, lakes, ponds, and streams that once ran with the
songs of frogs have fallen into a silence.
This is more than the loss of a child's science project, it means
a boom in swarms of mosquitoes than were once kept in check by the
amphibian appetites. The
insect repellents will not stop these "stinging things of summer"
for very long and the chemicals can have a disastrous effect on us
as well as the environment!
There are many theories as to why
amphibians are becoming extinct, but no one answer.
They are a "silent sign of our damage to the environment", David
Wake, a biologist at University of California (Berkeley) who led an
emergency National Research Council conference on this subject.
While many of these friends are gone
because of the destruction of their wetland homes - logging, human
development. There are
other possibilities - acid rain and snow, pesticides, drought and
imported exotic species of other critters. But the rapid decline of them
from protected parks throughout America alone make Rachel Carson's
"Silent Spring" seem all too near.
What affects them will sooner or later effect us.
The National Parks survey shows an alarming extinction rate.
As the winter snows melt and small ponds
brim with runoff, the amphibians emerge from their sleep in rotten logs
and soggy burrows. These
"Harbingers of Spring" voice loving croaks to attract a mate.
The females lay hundred of eggs in still ponds and the males
cover them with a milky sperm. Salamander females fertilize their eggs
internally, after gathering male sperm from the bottom of the ponds.
They all attach the eggs to submerged rocks, plants or logs.
Broods of frogs, toads, and salamanders
develop in two distinct stages from long strands of eggs or jellylike
egg masses the size of a softball.
Young, gilled tadpoles, also called polliwogs, which emerge from
the egg masses must stay in the water until they mature into adults,
when they can also survive on the land.
The adult amphibians have the unique
ability to breathe through their moist skin, so that they can absorb
oxygen either above or below the water.
On land, they use humanlike lungs. Because these special devices
allow them to live in two environments, they are also vulnerable to
each! Their permeable skin
can easily absorb toxins from both the air and the water.
These toxins are then passed on through the "food chain" to
eagles, herons, raccoons and others that eat frogs.
They are subjected as tadpoles and adults
to a broad spectrum of problems.
They are a part of the environmental fabric and indicated
environmental change they are like the "Miners Canary" that would die
due to the invisible, deadly fumes of the coal mine and save the miners.
Another growing danger is the hole in the
ozone layer; the eggs can be ruined by the ultraviolet light.
The acid rain and snow can be deadly to
some frogs and kill the eggs.
Even a slight increase in this acid rain can cause this, or if
they survive the emerging tadpoles are deformed.
It can even keep them from maturing on time and the summer heat
dries out their ponds before they can hop safely away.
Since they fertilize in open water the sperm can be killed
instantly.
How bad is
it? Well in
Calaveras County, California made famous by Mark Twain's tale of jumping
frogs, the native frogs are gone!
They were eaten by people or imported east coast bullfrogs or
killed by toxic mining waste!
Bruce Bury of the U.S. Wildlife Service said ..."it could be
something bigger than we realize".
After 75 million years, they cannot survive
"man"; can man survive "man"?
Toads and frogs represent one of the earliest forms of life on
land. Will they join the
15% of the world's animals expected to be extinct in the next 30 years?
Extinct is forever!
For more information check your local library or use a search engine.
*I originally wrote this article in the early 1990’s, things are worse now in 2008. National Geographic, other institutions and zoos will feature special programs this year on the disappearance of the frogs.