Marty Michener wrote:
> Boy, those sounds (of course) stump me. I have no reference frog sounds
> here currently but your excellent web site.
So far it's stumping the experts. And arousing interest. Hope it's not
some false lead.
> 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.
Yes, I deliberately left in some narrow-mouthed toads in the beginning.
No known call from females, that alone would be very noteworthy. But,
these don't reply to the narrowmouths.
> 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.
This, of course, was their territorial call. The trick is to note by
listening that the same frog can give that call and the breeding call.
One of the things I'm working on now is recording other calls than
breeding calls for all the frogs. Here no regular narrowmouth calls
issued from the same spot.
> 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.
At least there you could probably identify the frog, it was known. Here,
if this is a frog, it's a new one for at least Georgia. I got a "very
interesting" and a immediate effort to tear himself away from his
commitments to go chase it from John Jensen. He does not recognize it
either. Now we are bumping it up one step to Paul Mohler, who taught
John about frogcalls. There is not much above that around here in the
way of higher experts on frogcalls except God.
I sure hope John and I can manage to get our hands on one. Even if we
fail this time, I'll keep trying, probably next years too. Once I get
aware of a call I'm tuned in, will probably find it more places. Sooner
or later it will be ID'd.
Walt
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