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Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
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| Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adults, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
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| Adults, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adults, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adults, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
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| Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
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Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona
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Adult, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Black-necked Gartersnake preying on an adult frog, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
| Habitat |
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| Habitat, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Adults in habitat, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Habitat, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
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Habitat, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Habitat, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Habitat, Santa Cruz County, Arizona |
Frogs formerly classified as Rana (=Lithobates) subaquavocalis - Ramsey Canyon Leopard Frog |
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Adult, Miller Canyon,
Cochise County, Arizona
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Adults, Miller Canyon,
Cochise County, Arizona |
Adult, Miller Canyon,
Cochise County, Arizona |
Huachuca Mountains Habitat |
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Habitat, Miller Canyon,
Cochise County, Arizona
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Habitat, Miller Canyon,
Cochise County, Arizona |
Sign at Beatty's Ranch, Miller Canyon, Coshise County, Arizona |
Short Videos |
| On a sunny August day in Santa Cruz County Arizona, I watched a bunch of Chiricahua Leopard Frogs go about their business around a nearly evaporated cattle pond. The next day a huge thunderstorm hammered the area, filling the ponds back up, but I was lucky to film the frogs when their foraging grounds were limited. After initially fleeing from me, they eventually tolerated my presence and crept back onto the shore, sometimes only several feet from where I was standing, and began feeding. Below are several short videos of these frogs in and around the pond. I estimated there were almost 60 frogs. |
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| After first fleeing me by jumping into the water, the frogs gradually hopped out of the pond and sat and waited to try to catch some of the many flying insects and invertebrates that landed on the mud around the pond. |
As the temperature increased, the frogs began to assemble into groups, including some large piles of over a dozen. I could not figure out the reason for this behavior, but it appeared to be some kind of social interaction, since they were not feeding. |
The frogs mostly sat and waited for food, but occasionally they crawled or hopped quickly to catch an insect. They jump so quickly to catch their food, that it is almost not visible in real time. This video shows a number of frogs feeding in real time, then repeated at the end in slow motion where you can see their huge mouths and tongues in action. |
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Not every feeding attempt was successful. In the first segment you see a frog leap after a worm, then spit it out along with some apparently distasteful red ants. The frog had to use its front feet to pull the ants off of its tongue. The ants continued on afterwards, but apparently unharmed.
The next segment shows a large flying insect crawling on the shore, with several frogs leaping one by one towards it only to decide it was not edible.
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A Chiricahua Leopard Frogs sheds its old skin, using all four legs to pull the skin and push it towards its mouth which is opened and closed to help pull the skin off. Here you can see the skin pulled from the front toes and rear legs. This one minute video was cut down from about four minutes, but the shedding went on for much longer. |
Views of another group of Leopard frogs at a different pond covered with some type of red algae, as they hop around, bask, feed, and shed. |
