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Hi Mark. A frog friend and I were at the lily pond today and it was rife with tadpoles of various sizes and stages. Two questions: 1) It looked like the two ducks might be feeding on them ... do they? 2) How many tadpoles actually survive to frog adulthood? — Christine C. This particular topic has come up a lot recently, and one of our visitors beautifully photographed a heron eating a rather large bullfrog out of the lily pond in the Children's Garden . It was a graphic interaction, but demonstrates how vital amphibians are in food webs and one of the reasons we use to illustrate how important it is to keep amphibians around. Almost everything eats them, or their tadpoles, or their eggs ... or all three. Many animals eat frogs exclusively (including some frog species!), and the herons at the Garden obviously love them. I have seen ducks eating tadpoles quite rapidly. In fact, my amphibian class last summer quantified how quickly different aquatic birds could ...

Knowing this day would come didn’t make it any easier.

- September 28, 2016

via Instagram http://ift.tt/2d5EpUb https://www.instagram.com/p/BK6zdXuDn5e/ The last known Rabbs’ Fringe-limbed Tree Frog has passed away in the Atlanta Botanical Garden’s frogPOD, where he has lived since 2008. He was collected as part of the Panamanian frog rescue mission in 2005, set forth by ABG and Zoo Atlanta to save frogs being decimated by chytrid fungus. I had the honor of working with him for almost 7 years, and in that time his sad story of being the very last of his kind had, in a powerfully sad way, made him an ‘ambassador' for amphibian conservation and awareness. Almost 40% of the world’s amphibian populations are documented as in decline, or already extinct. That means that this frog - who my son nicknamed ‘Toughie’ when he was 2 years old - is unfortunately not entirely unique in his situation. There are other species out there, blinking out before we even have a chance to recognize what was happening, let alone reverse it. Amphibians are disappea...

Species Spotlights: Poison frogs and Glass frogs

- August 14, 2011

Epipedobates tricolor | Phantasmal poison frog (Morispunga morph) Male transporting tadpoles. Frogs are among the most diverse groups of vertebrates . They occur globally from the tropics to the sub-arctic regions, and in just about every conceivable habitat, one can find a frog species that has specialized to live there. Despite this diversity, it is generally easy to tell a frog from any other type of animal. Thanks, in part, to the absence of a tail like most other critters. Due to the range of unique requirements these habitats demand of frogs, each species has specialized behaviors and/or characters and some of these specializations are quite spectacular. Today, we are featuring two species which possess unique, prominent physical attributes. First, and one of the author's favorites is the Phantasmal poison frog | Epipidobates tricolor , which has been living, breeding, singing and hopping around the Fuqua Conservatory since 1995. Most poison frogs (family: dendr...

Some Timely Info About Native Snakes and You — by John Jensen, DNR

- May 01, 2017

This tiny (yet fierce) Brown Snake ( Storeria dekayi ) is a harmless brown snake, often mis-identified (and killed) as a Copperhead. This beneficial snake eats slugs and can help keep your garden healthy. Questions About Snakes? DNR Has Answers FORSYTH, Ga. (4/27/2017) From spring through summer, calls and emails about snakes are a given at Georgia Department of Natural Resources offices. Yet most of those contacts involve only two questions: What species is this and what do I do with it? “Only every once in a while, is it a venomous snake,” said John Jensen, a senior wildlife biologist with DNR’s Nongame Conservation Section and co-author of “Amphibians and Reptiles of Georgia. ”Whether it’s a venomous snake is, of course, the concern or outright fear underlying most of the questions. Chances are it’s not, Jensen said. Only six of the 46 species native to Georgia are venomous and only one – the copperhead – usually thrives in suburban areas, where the majority of Georgia...

Amphibians and Solar Eclipses — What to Expect

- August 13, 2017

Green Tree Frogs are typically vocal during August and we may hear an increase in their breeding activity during the eclipse! Very little is known about amphibians and their response to a solar eclipse. We may even expect such a short lapse in photoperiod to be largely ignored by amphibians. One of the few reports on the subject comes from data gathered during a solar eclipse in New England in 1932. Wheeler, et al (1935) documented a lot of activity, with species such as Spring Peepers, Grey Tree Frogs and American Toads temporarily behaving as if it were night. We are encouraging our Metro Atlanta Amphibian Monitoring Program (maamp.us) participants to get out, if possible to their survey sites and record their observations during the eclipse. We would also encourage the entire Atlanta community to submit their observations of amphibians while they are out witnessing the event. Did you hear an increase in frog calling? Was there an increase in activity? Did the frogs, toads and sa...

Colors in the conservatory lobby

- February 06, 2011

Yesterday was the opening of our new ' Liquid Landscapes ' exhibits throughout the Fuqua Conservatory and Orchid Center . Lots of visitors crowded the garden and we had about 80 people attend our Saturday frog feeding! Here are some of the vibrant poison frogs we have on display. Most poison frogs are somewhat bold, but a few of the frogs in our Okipipi exhibit can be on the shy side (especially the 'azureus morph' or blue poison frog) so I am including some of the frogs that happened to be out today. Phyllobates terribilis , the Terrible poison frog. Named as such because it is one of the few frogs lethal to humans (in the wild) Dendrobates tinctorius , the Sipaliwini morph. Frogs of this species vary tremendously in color, with differing amounts of blues, blacks, whites, and yellows depending on where in South America their home is. The different variations are often called 'morphs' which are separated geographically. The yellow morph of Phyllobate...