Trembling Toes

[LilyPad]

The spring peepers have grown considerably over the last few days. It's like they all hit a growth spurt at once.

One thing that I found funny though... They started the toe twitching while hunting. They'll be watching the fruit flies and they be all ready to pounce, and I see their rear toes shaking. I've observed this with my toads (and found out on here that it was totally normal!) but my tree frogs have never done it, so I honestly didn't expect the peepers to start up with it!

[Frog Mom]

Yeah, my frogs do it too. I read about it on here as well, and then caught my frogs doing it while they were hunting.

[bshmerlie]

Dart frogs are notorious for toe tapping while eating. Kind of fun to watch.

[JWells]

Dart frogs are notorious for toe tapping while eating. Kind of fun to watch.

Yeah, my darts always do this, but I dont see it much with my treefrogs. Looks like they're communicating in Morse-code!

[frogluver]

I have never observed this with my frogs but it sounds pretty interesting. As we were the topic of toe twitching, there is a species of frogs that resides by waterfalls in an Australian rainforest and as a result of it being so loud near the waterfalls, these frogs have developed a type of sign language as a form of communication. These frogs have been observed waving their arms around in what certainly looks like some sort of signal, greeting, or similar form of communication. According to the observation, it appeared as these frogs were waving to each other. These signals may simply be a muscle stretching exercise lol, or it may be some form of communication behavior or signal. However, it clearly resembles the hello/goodbye waving of people, and this makes it all the more mysterious.

[John]

This is actually an indicator of which families of frogs share common ancestry. As you've just seen, tree frogs, dart frogs and true toads are much more closely related to each other than "True frogs" (Ranids).

[JWells]

Interesting point, John. Is this a theory on your part or something proven? just curious...

[JWells]

I have never observed this with my frogs but it sounds pretty interesting. As we were the topic of toe twitching, there is a species of frogs that resides by waterfalls in an Australian rainforest and as a result of it being so loud near the waterfalls, these frogs have developed a type of sign language as a form of communication. These frogs have been observed waving their arms around in what certainly looks like some sort of signal, greeting, or similar form of communication. According to the observation, it appeared as these frogs were waving to each other. These signals may simply be a muscle stretching exercise lol, or it may be some form of communication behavior or signal. However, it clearly resembles the hello/goodbye waving of people, and this makes it all the more mysterious.

This is also mating behavior in atelopus species. Here's a video of a. zeteki..


The frog i believe you have in mind is Taudactylus eungellensis.

Here's more: ARKive - Eungella torrent frog video - Taudactylus eungellensis - 00

[Pandora3d]

hah! this is one of the first things i noticed about my american toads! i was cracking up the whole time i was watching them hunt/eat, soooo funny!!

[GrifTheGreat]

Some Pacmans exibit this behavior to attract their prey to them. They leave their toes exposed and wiggle them to get the attension of their potential prey. Perhaps also a close relative since theyr too are not true frogs? They also do this while out of their burrow hunting. I believe that Ornates can be found doing this more than the other breeds.