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Re: Mystery Frog

Subject: Re: Mystery Frog
From: Marty Michener <>
Date: Mon, 07 Jul 2003 10:09:40 -0400
At 11:31 PM 7/5/2003 -0400, Walt wrote:
>We have had some mystery birds on here, with lots of expert opinion.
>Well, I've got a frogcall I don't recognize. Recorded last week in S
>Georgia.
>
>Shallow pool under trees, maybe 30 X 50' and not much more than knee
>deep. Lots of edge brush. Found during the day with Eastern Narrowmouth
>Toads calling. This new guy prefers similar locations to the
>Narrowmouths, and must be small, I spent three hours trying to catch one
>and never even saw one. More wary than Narrowmouths. They called to each
>other's calls, but not the Narrowmouths. And their call is not very loud
>at all. It was drowned out completely that night when the Cope's Gray
>Treefrogs started calling too.

Boy, those sounds (of course) stump me.  I have no reference frog sounds 
here currently but your excellent web site.

I presume the sounds in your mystery recording at 5 sec and then 16 - 20 
ARE male narrow-mouthed toads, and the lower chucking are the mystery 
voices.  Please pardon the probably dumb question, you may have already 
covered it: could they be FEMALE Gastrophryne, stimulated by or answering 
to the louder calling males from burrows or from other hiding places?  But 
no, you say they answer each other.

Danger: stories of no use to anyone:

When I was 16 in high school, and first recorded spring peepers in 
Pennsylvania, I heard occasionally a trill among the loud chorus of 
"peeps".  Thinking I had a different species, I carefully tracked several 
down and bagged them and took them home.  They were all actually male 
peepers, Hyla crucifer, and at home in a terrarium then sang the normal 
peep call.  I am not sure if this situation applies to your mystery voiced 
frog, but I bet you have already thought of this possibility.

In Belize, in 1960, we caught about 30 tropical species after recording 
their songs.  We had no way to identify them, so we referred to the  frogs 
we already had recorded and caught by assigning call-descriptive funny 
names, like the "cronk-cronk frog".  The one that took us a week to catch 
after first recording it (lived in burrows and retreated very rapidly), we 
called the bastard.  Good luck with yours.

my best regards,

Marty Michener
MIST Software Associates PO Box 269, Hollis, NH 03049

EnjoyBirds.com  - Software that migrates with you.    http://www.EnjoyBirds.com

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