Amphibian » Biodiversity in Focus Blog

Spring Peepers: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Biology, Natural History, Nature, Photography, Uncategorized 11 Responses »

Mar 252012

This past week saw some unseasonably AWESOME weather around Southern Ontario, allowing me to break out the shorts and sandals nice and early. Better yet, our local fauna has started to emerge from their winter hiding places, with flies buzzing, ants battling, and frogs calling!

Thursday evening I went out to a local conservation area with a few of my labmates in search of the early indicators of vernal vertebrate life: spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer). It wasn’t long until we heard the high pitched squeaks of males calling throughout a small pond, so we donned waders and headed in to the water! Of course, just because you can hear the males doesn’t mean their easy to find, especially in a mucky-bottomed pond hiding logs just waiting to drag you (and your photo gear) into the depths, and among clumps of reeds forming perfect hiding places & bandshells for their performances. Add to that dozens, if not hundreds, of calling frogs, and you have an ear-splitting distraction which makes it difficult to hone in on a single individual!

Eventually I did find a male who was out in the open and doing his best to seduce any potential mates in the area. While being in the open made it easy for me to see and photograph him, it also made it easy for him to see me coming, causing him to stop calling as soon as I crawled in close for a photo. With some patience, a better angle, and some interesting body contortions, I finally got a few photos I was happy with.

Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)? More like Spring Peeker...

Why you no call for me Spring Peeper?

Success! Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer) in mid call

Presumably this male will eventually find himself a mate, hold on tight and contribute his spawn to the pond ecosystem. Perhaps one day his progeny will emerge as tiny froglets, like this young’un I found in Maryland a few summers back.

Spring Peeper froglet dealing with the jungle of a lawn!

Funny story to finish off; when I got home Thursday evening I posted to Twitter:

Spent the evening in hip waders slogging through a pond shooting spring peepers! Frickin’ awesome to be outside shooting again!

— Morgan Jackson (@BioInFocus) March 23, 2012

It was a good lesson in word choice, as I had several followers asking why I wanted to hurt these innocent little frogs or what caliber firearm I was using… Oops! Rest assured that no spring peepers were harmed in the production of this blog post!

Why Headlines Matter

Cool Science, Rant, Science Communication, Taxonomy in the News 16 Responses »

Feb 212012

I was browsing MSNBC tonight trying to stay up to date on goings on from around the world (well, at least the stuff that my Twitter feed hasn’t taught me already), when I saw this headline in the Science section:

In case you can't see it, the headline reads "Newly discovered legless amphibians are horrifying"

Ahh, nothing like some mainstream media-endorsed fear mongering to make people care about an at-risk animal! The amphibian being referenced is actually a really neat new family of Caecilian, legless amphibians which live underground and, in this case, look like earthworms with backbones.

Photo by SD Biju, linked from MSNBC article

The cruel irony is the author (who I’m going to assume didn’t write the headline) finishes off the story by saying:

The habitat of these bizarre animals is under threat, as farming takes over forest land in northeast India, according to the University of Delhi. Although caecilians are harmless, local lore has it that they are incredibly venomous snakes, another factor that threatens these mysterious, secretive creatures.

How exactly are we supposed to get the public to become interested in an at-risk new species when we set them up with negative opinions from the get go? Instead of sharing a fascinating new species that doesn’t conform to most people’s idea of what an amphibian is, and encouraging them to ask questions like “Wow, why does that animal look that way?” or “How is that a relative of frogs?”, MSNBC has instead promoted the ‘ick-factor’ and reinforced that if something looks different it should be feared. Maybe this type of headline will get a lot of people to click on the link, but how many will actually read the story and learn about their cool biology rather than just looking at the photo and agreeing with the headline? When the natural world coughs up an amazing story it’s maddening to see it trashed and slandered like this!

Of course, at least MSNBC knows that scientific family names like Chikilidae are always capitalized, unlike the CBC…

Update: It seems MSNBC syndicated this story and headline from LiveScience. Perhaps the headline was proposed by the author after all…

Blogs for Beginners – Be a Follower

Blogosphere, General Information 2 Responses »

Apr 062010

As I sat here writing my thesis this afternoon, my mind began to wonder (as it’s apt to do when I force myself to do things for long periods of time), and I started wondering how many people are frequent blog readers. Personally, I begin everyday checking in to see if anyone has put some new information out there for me to ingest (I’m an information-addict). But how many other people do something similar? Sure, people check their Facebook to see how their friend’s date went, or check in on Twitter to find out what Ashton Kutcher is eating for breakfast, but what about starting the day learning something new and related to your work/hobby?

Wood Frog Lithobates sylvatica sitting on grass

Have spring fever but stuck inside? Blogs may be the answer!

Spined Finds

Nature, Photography, Travel 3 Responses »

Feb 122010

I think from now on I’ll stop forecasting when my next blog post will be as I don’t seem to be hitting many deadlines! Although slightly delayed, today I’ll be sharing some of the more “cuddly” creatures that we encountered during our 2 weeks in the Bolivian Amazon.