Michele asks: "Was Jeremiah Really a Bullfrog?"

Michele, at http://micheleagnew.com/ asks in her latest "All About You" test: "Do you think Jeremiah really was a bullfrog?"


The Jeremiah we knew and loved was indeed a bullfrog - a very large bullfrog. He appeared to be about 12" long from nose to toes (when fully extended). The first summer we lived in our house, we used the pool at all hours. Discovering that a large frog swam in our pool every night, we tried to swim with him. My son would dive in, and the frog would go to the very deepest part of the pool and hover there, pretending to be dead. After a few days, the frog realized that we were not going to harm him, so he would swim around with us, taking long, long strokes and nearly swimming the full length of the pool with 1-2 strokes. That frog stayed around our pool the entire summer, and we miss him even after all this time.

We have lived here 23 years. In the first 10 -15 years or so, we had frogs around the pool nearly every night. In the spring mating season, the chirps of the small tree frogs would be almost deafening every evening. They would sit on the tiled edge of the pool; mating as though their very lives depended on it. The next morning, I would see large gelatinous mats of small black specks all over the top of the water surface. Most of them got skimmed off into the filtration system; some got scooped out with our leaf net. But occasionally, some must have survived, because we would get a new crop of tiny frogs in the pool. Small tree frogs used to climb up the brick wall onto my kitchen window, and "hang" there overnight; their little suction-cup feet visible from inside. It was a good science lesson for the children.

What I am wondering now is "where have all the frogs gone?" I heard once that if you have frogs nearby, you can rest asured there are no snakes around. We see a few frogs now and then; trapped overnight in the skimmer basket. We release them into the woods, but the huge numbers of frogs we once saw do not exist anymore, at least not here. Perhaps the little frogs have all met the fate of the one in the photo above - caught by a black snake. I had barely enough time to get the camera, but I made it back outside before the snake swallowed the poor little frog. I hate to see that happen, even though I know it is all part of the "survival of the fittest" thing.