RAUK - Archived Forum - How Common are Red frogs in England?

Hi Cavy

Frogs aren't a strong point of mine I'm trying hard to learn about these aspects.

What size is the Housing?

How many frogs are housed there?

Could you get a picture?

Thanks

James

Well Cavy, reports of oddly coloured common frogs (red/black/yellow/orange etc) are now fairly common particularly in urban areas.

Piccy would be interesting to see.

Hi Mynewt,

I've seen near black frogs in Haringey. One interesting obs I made was when clearing an isolated courtyard population at an inner London school.

Firstly, the pond had to go because of insurance reasons. The population could be assumed to be 100% isolated.

The interesting bit was that all the youngest frogs looked 'normal' only as you have stated, the sub-adult and adult frogs showed colour aberration and rounded snouts.

So counting odd froglets may not provide any information as it appears the symptoms occur in later life.

There is no doubt in my mind that these odd frogs are mostly centered around garden populations, perhaps pointing to genetic factors, however I have also observed the occasional odd frogs in the wider countryside in the last couple of years showing similar characteristics. (colour aberration, rounded snouts, unusual gait, generally odd looking).

Certainly common frogs visiting our garden pond from the wild look like the ones I remember from childhood, quite different to the  distinctly odd ones I see on call outs in more suburban gardens.

I wonder if it would be worth close observation of the development of frogs from these populations? Certainly something is not right but it appears mostly there is little interest in the issue.

PS Cavy, you can upload images directly to the forum using the  button, if all else fails just email me the piccy at admin and I'll post it up.

The rounded snouts I've seen on 'odd' frogs have included sub-adult individuals, perhaps not a clear description, though I am not confusing it with the usual appearance of adult female common frogs. There are other symptoms also including the look of the membranes surrounding the eye that mark some of the colour abarrent frogs apart in my mind to 'normal' frogs.

The Trevor Beebee theory has a lot of merit, I wonder if counting odd coloured juveniles is not going to work, what other options are there to carry out field work to investigate this?

My problem with this is there seems to be more to it.

The Boulanger frog appears no different to many observable in wild populations, the 'odd' frogs seem to me different in many aspects to more 'normal' healthy specimens I observe.

I guess I could say it is a bit like seeing a rabbit with the last stages of myxomatosis, you don't need to know what caused it to instinctively feel something is 'wrong' with the animal.

I think it may well be, not sure of the raising lots of frogs, being perhaps one of the worst captive subjects I can imagine! I wonder though if a field measurements/notes could be collected? If it could be defined which traits were 'odd' and which normal perhaps we could move towards seeing if it does occur generally more in garden populations? I can certainly sample some population of 100+ wild frogs that I think would generally return 'normal' results from past observations.. could this work with RAUK members also keeping an eye out for the 'odds'

PS I liked the Boulanger illustration, thanks for sharing it

For what it's worth when I visited Skomer Island a couple of years back, I noticed all the toads there were brick red.

Could these localized colour variations be due to a local food source?  Perhaps a particular mineral gets into the food chain. Like the small shrimp that flamingoes eat and which gives them their pink colouration.

There were large numbers of brick red froglets at Tichwell RSPB (Norfolk) reserve at the weekend, in the the woodland between the car park and visitors centre.

Mark