Help me identify this frog

[ElisabethR]

Hi, I'm new here. I don't have a pet frog (yet), but I had a mystery that Google Image and Colorado's wildlife sites couldn't solve.

I saw this frog sitting in a parking lot puddle today. I was literally driving past it, slowed down for some geese, and saw it sitting in the puddle. It was near a pond, so seeing a frog wasn't TOO unusual, but still surprising. I'd visited that pond a lot as a kid and never seen one.

I touched it with my finger and it didn't move. I thought it was dead, so I poked it lightly with a twig and it finally twitched. I didn't really want to pick it up, but I wanted to get it out of traffic's way. But I couldn't get it to move at all. Not an inch. He didn't appear injured but he wasn't responsive. So I had to just leave it there, and he was probably squished.

His eyes were the weirdest red color. I assumed he was a bullfrog. My mom said it didn't look like any wild frog she'd ever seen. He was spotted on his belly and feet, and quite rough on his back.

I've since Googled pictures and I haven't found anything that matches his eye or skin color. His eyes were so red, and he had a really "mean" face. Not like the frogs and toads I've seen before. I feel certain he IS some kind of local species, and his eye color is just an odd variation, but my mom wonders if he was dumped from an aquarium and that's why his behavior was so odd. Who has heard of a frog that won't jump when nudged?

Anyway, any help you can give would be appreciated. I'm sure it's not that big of a mystery but I'll feel even worse if he was a clueless aquarium frog, spreading his germs into the pond.

It doesn't seem to want to load my photo from yfrog, so here's a link: http://yfrog.com/f/10txbzj/


Thanks so much! And I hope to hang around here ... I've always wanted a pet frog. Maybe I missed my chance today.

[Jace]

Hi, Elisabeth and welcome to the Forum. Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to tell from your picture what kind of frog it is. As well, if he was sitting in a puddle in a parking lot, one can only imagine what was in that water (gasoline, oil. pesticides etc) that he was absorbing....it could have altered his skin and eye colouration making it tough to use them for identification purposes. Most frogs and toads will attempt to get away and the fact that this one did not indicates it was sick and more than likely dying. I am not familiar with frogs native to your area, so I couldn't even hazard a guess that it was a bullfrog.

Frogs and toads make amazing pets and can live long, happy lives. I definitely think there is a frog waiting for you out there....and we're here to help when you find him or her!

[John]

It's a Ranid but beyond that it's impossible to say from that photo.

[ElisabethR]

The photo does become a lot larger (allowing you to see some more detail of his color, eyes, spots) if you click on it ... I don't know if that helps, but it's a nice feature of Twitter's yfrog.

Size wise, he was about three inches long, maybe two wide.