Weekly Update on My Wood Frog Vocalization Experiment :)

[frogluver]

Oh, I almost forgot!!! You'll never guess what happened on Monday!

So I put back Lil’ Piggy, the frog I just got done testing with, into his normal living quarters with Lil’ Porker, the first frog I tested. Lil’ Porker, (who had been croaking for the past four nights), seemed happy to have his tank mate back, as the two frogs sat together for several hours. Well, at around noon—one of the times in which mating activity is most active during the WF breeding season—Lil’ Porker decides to grasp Lil’ Piggy around the waist, as if he were a female! Then, Lil’ Porker starts to croak (Piggy didn’t call any release calls, but tried to squirm away which he was successful at doing lol).

Lil’ Porker was displaying signs of mating behavior! The conditions from Test A (the cold temps, humidity, etc..) must have made him think it was time to hibernate. And then when I brought him back to normal conditions last week, must have thought “hibernation” was over and it was thus time to mate. I've never experienced mating behaviors among my Wood frogs or in keeping WF’s over the past 7 years. Maybe this discovery means there is a way to successfully breed Wood frogs in captivity, which—as far to my knowledge—has never been done before.

Pretty cool or what?

[Poly]

Oh, I almost forgot!!! You'll never guess what happened on Monday!

So I put back Lil’ Piggy, the frog I just got done testing with, into his normal living quarters with Lil’ Porker, the first frog I tested. Lil’ Porker, (who had been croaking for the past four nights), seemed happy to have his tank mate back, as the two frogs sat together for several hours. Well, at around noon—one of the times in which mating activity is most active during the WF breeding season—Lil’ Porker decides to grasp Lil’ Piggy around the waist, as if he were a female! Then, Lil’ Porker starts to croak (Piggy didn’t call any release calls, but tried to squirm away which he was successful at doing lol).

Lil’ Porker was displaying signs of mating behavior! The conditions from Test A (the cold temps, humidity, etc..) must have made him think it was time to hibernate. And then when I brought him back to normal conditions last week, must have thought “hibernation” was over and it was thus time to mate. I've never experienced mating behaviors among my Wood frogs or in keeping WF’s over the past 7 years. Maybe this discovery means there is a way to successfully breed Wood frogs in captivity, which—as far to my knowledge—has never been done before.

Pretty cool or what?

Wow that's awesome! I find it odd he didn't make any release calls, my large male toad, Bufo, if is even tapped by his tank mate on the back will make release calls! Hmm, maybe the "hibernation" conditions it experienced (even though they were meant as mating) made it, like you say, think that it's winter, then the normal conditions of it's terrarium were mating season conditions, so you've been trying soo hard to replicate the mating season conditions of WILD wood frogs by lowering the temperature when actually your TAME-ish wood frogs thought their terrarium was the mating season, after of course the older conditions. So, maybe if you take the group of them, cool them all down for a week, then get their regular viv set-up with mating call recordings playing, and re-introduce them, you'll get/see/record some vocalizations! Ohhh this is soo exciting (!), I wish I was in Alaska with you documenting all of this on my video camera!!!

[frogluver]

Wow that's awesome! I find it odd he didn't make any release calls, my large male toad, Bufo, if is even tapped by his tank mate on the back will make release calls! Hmm, maybe the "hibernation" conditions it experienced (even though they were meant as mating) made it, like you say, think that it's winter, then the normal conditions of it's terrarium were mating season conditions, so you've been trying soo hard to replicate the mating season conditions of WILD wood frogs by lowering the temperature when actually your TAME-ish wood frogs thought their terrarium was the mating season, after of course the older conditions. So, maybe if you take the group of them, cool them all down for a week, then get their regular viv set-up with mating call recordings playing, and re-introduce them, you'll get/see/record some vocalizations! Ohhh this is soo exciting (!), I wish I was in Alaska with you documenting all of this on my video camera!!!

Haha, I know! Maybe he didn't feel entirely threatened?

Exactly!! And now I think I've totally confused my frogs hahaha ;D!! Maybe I'll get some more vocalizations with Test B.....but at least I've recorded some already from Test A . Ah, I know me too!!!