Edition:
August 8, 2008
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Deep in the swift flowing rivers of Cameroon and of neighboring Equatorial Guiana in West Africa a monster lurks. It feeds on fish, birds, crustaceans, insects and mammals. Its body is more than a foot long, and with legs stretched out it measures two and one-half feet and weighs seven pounds. This is Conraua goliath, a frog; it is the biggest frog known to science.
Two frogs share the glory for being the smallest. In the Northern Hemisphere, the award goes to Eleutherodactylus Iberia, found in Cuba. In the Southern Hemisphere, Psyllophryne didactyla, or gold frog, from Brazil shares the honor. These tiny croakers measure only three-eighths of an inch, with legs folded. Both are fairly recent discoveries.
Somewhere in between these sizes hop, climb and swim the remainder of the 5,000 or so species of frogs in the world. Frogs are everywhere – including Canyon Lake. Last fall I received a call from Joan Proeschold who described a small, dark-colored frog living in her watering can. We concluded that it might be a tree frog (this in spite of the fact that Canyon Lake is situated in an arid area where one might not expect to find frogs – or trees).
Not expecting to find frogs in the desert is misguided. Frogs live in all terrains; mountain tops, valleys, swamps (especially), deserts (oddly) and jungles. To tune their habitats more finely, they also live in watering cans, ornamental fish ponds, water trapped in flower cups – almost anywhere water stands long enough for eggs to hatch and allow tadpoles to metamorphose.
Oh, while one might expect that all tree frogs live in trees, many find repose in crevices in rocks, stumps and ground litter. They do, of course, venture onto and into leafy bowers, hunting for food and mates.
Of course, our arid region has been transformed by the creation of our “lake” and by trees, shrubs and gardens among our homes and parks, which make a diversified forest (look down on Canyon Lake from any high vantage point and imagine away all of the homes – what is left is quite diversified woodland.) One has to assume that “tree” frogs preceded Canyon Lake’s latter-day forest, meaning they probably were here first, living along the brushy banks of the San Jacinto River as it coursed through what became Railroad Canyon.
Anyway, through the winter, Joan and Ron Proeschold and I pondered what species of frog had made her watering can its home. Before we could study it more closely, it disappeared. Winter passed, spring flourished – and early summer began to heat things up in Canyon Lake.
Then, one evening in June, my phone rang; Joan was reporting the return of a tiny replica of the first frog she’d discovered. This was a most interesting discovery.
Joan said that, on the previous day, they had the outside of their house sprayed against an invasion of summer bugs. On the night she called me she had stepped out to her patio and noticed what she thought was a beetle clinging to the wall. This was puzzling because there shouldn’t have been a beetle on the wall due to the recent spraying. Then she and Ron looked closer. Looking back at them through large, luminous eyes was a tiny frog. Out came a camera and its image was forever captured for this account.
What’s its pedigree? Tree frogs are abundant in the world. They range from the brilliantly colored “poison dart” frogs found in South American jungles to the unadorned grey or green species of western North America.
The Proeschild’s visitor gives clues to its place in the tree frog family. It is most likely a Hyla regilla, or Pacific tree frog that ranges from southern British Columbia to the tip of Baja California. It is a close cousin to the California tree frog, found only along the Southern California coast.
Spooky movies will often feature a surging chorus of frog songs to enhance an eerie scene. These lyrics are almost always from the throats of swarms of Pacific tree frogs. It is startling that such volume can emanate from such a tiny creature. Movie-goers are properly apprehensive at the sound. Hyla regilla ladies, on the other hand, get all excited for other reasons.
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