Frogs of the Times

A Frog that Can Change Skin Texture

"A new species of frog discovered in Ecuador is the first vertebrate known to change its skin texture from smooth to spiny, researchers say."  According to the article, the frog, discovered in 2006, is about the size of a marble.  

Photo from the New York Times

Playground Frogs

Dan Ross Playground
Bay Ridge Brooklyn

Winter storm Juno might not have been the snowmageddon they promised, but we got a snow day and finally took pictures of our local playground frog.

Christmas Visitor

We don't do it up quite like Dyker Heights, but folks in my neighborhood, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, really know how to decorate for Christmas.

Still, this was the best display I've seen all season.

NYC Frog Project On the Road

White Mountains National Forest, NH
Bear Notch Road

We were on our way to get ice cream when we saw this guy.  Wayne slammed on the brakes and I jumped out and snapped a few pictures.

NYC Frog Project on the Road

Live Frogs:  Maine Edition

While traveling through Acadia National Park on a rainy August day, we came across a pond with dozens of these guys hanging out on lily pads:

A couple of days later, in Baxter State Park, we found this guy in the woods around Daicey Pond, where we followed the Appalachian Trail for about a mile:

Frog Graffiti

Metropolitan Avenue
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

I'm not sure if this really counts as graffiti since someone was probably paid to paint it for Baked in Brooklyn--a sign of the times in Williamsburg.

Playground Frogs

Mother Cabrini Park
Red Hook, Brooklyn

According to the NYC Parks web site, Mother Cabrini Park was named for the first American citizen to be canonized:

This park honors Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917), a Roman Catholic missionary, and the first American citizen to be canonized.  Cabrini was born in a small town near Lodi, Italy.  At the age of 30, she founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, dedicating the group to the ministrty of the poor.  In 1889, Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) sent Cabrini and her missionaries to the United States to aid Italian immigrants.  In Manhattan, Cabrini taught at St. Joachim's paris, the Church of Our Lady of Pompeii, and the Transfiguration Catholic Church.  She also taught at St. Rita of Cascia in the Bronx as well as the Church of St. Stephen (now Sacred Hearts and St. Stephen's Church) in Brooklyn.

Public Art: 81st Street Subway, American Museum of Natural History

The 81st Street--Museum of Natural History stop on the IND Eighth Avenue Line features an installation called For Want of a Nail. It was commissioned in 2000 by the MTA, which describes it like this:

In For Want of a Nail, the artist team used a variety of materials to suggest the range and diversity at the American Museum of Natural History, directly above the subway station.  glass mosaic, glass tile, ceramic tile, granite, and bronze relief are combined in ways that highlight the ten key disciplines at the Museum.  The mosaics represent extinct and living animals, the former in grey and the latter in color.  The work assembles images from outer space to the earth's core and from the first organisms to emerge to mammals of today. The artwork was a collaboration between MTA Arts for Transit and the Museum.  For Want of a Nail, the title of an old proverb, asks the viewer to consider the way everything is connected.

There are good pictures of the installation here and here.

NYC Frog Project On the Road

Glenwood Gardens
Cincinnati, Ohio

A few years ago, I posted pictures of some of the frogs we found at Glenwood Gardens, one of the parks in Hamilton County.   This time, we found some real frogs.   The twelve-year-old boy who helped us find them could tell us what they were.  I don't remember now.

Playground Frogs

De Hostos Playground
Williamsburg, Brooklyn

We hit the jackpot!

Located on the edge of Williamsburg, as it turns into Bushwick, this playground was named for Eugenio Maria de Hostos (1839-1903), a Puerto Rican Reformer and Educator.  I'm not sure how the frogs connect, but there sure are a lot of them.

They leap across the fence:

There are spray showers (see my Tumblr blog for a series of these): 

Their lifecycle is embedded in the concrete:

And three of these little guys surround the flagpole:

NYC Frog Project On The Road

Frog Bridge
Willimantic, CT (Windham, CT)

This.  Is.  Awesome.

The bridge is also called the Thread City Crossing, an apt name considering Willimantic's historical ties to the mill industry.  But the frogs?  Ok, here's the story . . .

It was the beginning of the French and Indian War, and the townsfolk of Windham, Connecticut, were all nervous about being murdered in their beds.  So when an ungodly racket broke out one summer night, they panicked.  Was it Indians?  The end of the world?  Much running about with muskets and praying and wailing ensued.  And then . . . nothing.  It wasn't until the next morning that they discovered the carnage:  dozens of dead frogs around a pond that was drying up in the midsummer heat.  It seems that the frogs had engaged in a little battle of their own, and, much to the dismay of the Windhamites--and the amusement of their neighbors--the legend was born.

Apparently, there is an opera.

The bridge was completed in 2001.  Each of the four frogs has a name, but I'm not sure who is who.

At some point, the town embraced the story.  The town seal is a frog.  And there are early banknotes that show a frog standing over the corpse of its defeated enemy.  

NYC Frog Project On the Road

Dr. Seuss Memorial Garden
Springfield, MA

On our way back from a weekend in Vermont, we stopped in Springfield to see the Dr. Seuss Memorial Garden, which is is a courtyard between the library, the art museums, and the Springfield Science Museum.  Adorning the walls of the Science Museum were these frogs:

The Dr. Seuss National Sculpture Memorial Garden is worth a stop if you're ever in Springfield.  Theodore Giesel was born in Springfield, and his first children's book, To Think that I Saw it On Mulberry Street, was supposedly inspired by a street of that name in Springfield.  As this New York Times article concludes:

"As for Mulberry Street?  A shabby place with boarded-up houses, an addiction treatment center and drug dealers.  Young Marco in his necktie and dress Bermudas would be eaten alive on Mulberry Street.  Of course, that's the magic of Dr. Seuss' books, or any good fiction.  The real Mulberry Street isn't the real Mulberry Street and may never have been the real Mulberry Street.  The real Mulberry Street is the Mulberry Street drawn by Dr. Seuss in 1937 and forever frozen in time." 

The park features favorite characters--Horton, The Grinch and Max, the Lorax--and a statue of Giesel himself, at work in his studio.

Frogs of the TImes

A Frog of Special Skill

The article tells us that:  :Though they are widespread in New York City's five boroughs, gray tree frogs are rarely noticed by park visitors or wetland hikers." Its trick to surviving a New York City winter?  The frog is able to shut down its body so that its "heart stops beating completely, its lungs stop working, and its brain activity is almost unmeasurable."   I kind of wish I could do that in the summer, when it's 95 degrees and the whole city smells vaguely of rotting garbage.

Photo from the New York Times

NYC Frog Project on the Road

Turtleback Zoo
West Orange, NY

Playground Frogs

Thomas J. Cuite Park
Windsor Terrace Brooklyn

Two years ago, I posted pictures of these frogs, which had become fairly derelict.  This year, someone has given them polka dots.

Frogs of the Times

New Frog Species Discovered on Staten Island

I've decided to add a new feature to the blog called "Frogs of the Times"--the New York Times, that is.  From time to time the paper of record decides to report on things herpetological.

This article was published almost exactly a year ago and recounts the discovery of a new species of frog on Staten Island.  Yes, Staten Island.  As the reporter explains, most species are discovered in remote and unpopulated areas, but not this time.  The new frog had probably been seen and heard by thousands of people who didn't realize what they were looking at.  The croak, as the article explains, gave it away.

Picture from the New York Times