Pond Frogs Didn't Survive

[Ted]

A frog doesn't dig far into the mud in the water or it will suffocate,they usually stay on top of it.depth doesn't matter either as frogs actually freeze in the winter.their body creates a type of anti freeze that keeps them from dying,all body functions slow down ..so it might be in the water...

[UncleChester]

I'll second Heather's advice. We have an artificial pond, also about 3' deep. In particularly long and cold winters, we'd have far too many dead frogs so we've taken to punting them all out in the fall. We'd relocate them to a much deeper and larger spring fed pond (~8' deep and 100' across) at the back of the property. Frogs always find the smaller artificial pond come spring time.

This was a really bad winter. At the large pond, I'd usually find one or two dead frogs around the perimeter when the ice starts to clear (no matter what, they're not all going to make it). It's cleared around the edge as of yesterday and I've found about a dozen Leopard frogs belly up so far.

A frog doesn't dig far into the mud in the water or it will suffocate,they usually stay on top of it.depth doesn't matter either as frogs actually freeze in the winter.their body creates a type of anti freeze that keeps them from dying,all body functions slow down ..so it might be in the water...

Only a handful of frogs have anti-freeze like protection, green frogs and bullfrogs are not among them. They can't handle freezing. Water is densest at about 4C, and the pond hibernating frogs rely on this relatively warm water sinking to the bottom of the pond for them to winter in.

[Ted]

bullfrog needs deeper water in the winter , but yes they produce a antifreeze in their bodies also..Their glucose raises higher to keep them from freezing..

[UncleChester]

bullfrog needs deeper water in the winter , but yes they produce a antifreeze in their bodies also..Their glucose raises higher to keep them from freezing..

Bullfrogs aren't considered freeze tolerant according to any papers I've read. For example, http://www.units.miamioh.edu/cryolab...tanzoLee99.pdf mentions:

"Arnong the ranids, freeze tolerance has been demonstrated only in the most terrestrial species, the wood frog (Rana sylvatica), although it is likely that Palearctic brown frogs with similar habits (e.g., Rana arvalis; Kuzmin 1995) are also freeze tolerant."

I'd love to see any references you have, it could be a matter of degrees of 'freeze tolerance' if bullfrogs produce some level of cryoprotectants.

[Ted]

I'm not an expert,I went to google and typed in "do bullfrogs freeze in the winter?"..

[UncleChester]

I'm not an expert,I went to google and typed in "do bullfrogs freeze in the winter?"..

I'm by no means an expert either. I'm always up for learning something new and open to the possibility that I'm way wrong about just about anything.

I looked at the first couple of results from that google search and neither mention bullfrogs being freeze-tolerant. The first one How do frogs survive winter? Why don't they freeze to death? - Scientific American does mention the usual anti-freeze producing suspects Wood Frogs and Spring Peepers, the second just talks about Wood Frogs. Was there another link you found?

[Ted]

I'm kind of uncomfortable here,,I don't want to get in over my head,ok?..but what I really typed in was "does a bullfrog freeze?"...I found it on opinicon.wordpress....opinicon natural history..just below the graph but right above "conservation status"..