last friday evening, after the opening of the wbcp/pbp exhibit at the national museum annex, we were on our way home when we ran into mike, chary and alice peering at something in the gutter at the museum parking lot. it turned out that they were looking at a little frog-gy! it had rained hard the entire afternoon, and (despite being in the middle of manila) a frog chorus was in full blast. it sounded like there were frogs all around us! this frog was croaking its heart out, hard to believe that such a loud sound could come from such a small creature! while we were standing beside the gutter, talking about frogs-in-the-city, the frog chorus would suddenly stop and start again, with all the frogs turning silent in unison, as if controlled by a switch. (only my birder friends would actually stop, take notice and analyze this!) chary even mentioned how she would use animal communication as an example in her classes!
later, lala (herp and bird girl extraordinaire!) came out of the museum, took a peek at our subject and readily identified it as the slender-digit chorus frog (Kaloula picta). lala is now my official frog-identifier! :)
when i was looking at my pictures later that night, i noticed something strange about one of its front feet. it had an extra digit! i've read that frog deformities (though this was not so scary) could be caused by either parasites or pollution. hmmmm. project?!?
actually, initially, it reminded me of our molecular develpmental bio experiments in cps's class.
don't think i've turned frog-gy because this is my second amphibian post in 2 weeks!
we can study this to re-grow damaged/missing parts! 1 million geek points for me! hehe
ReplyDeletehaha. you're both nerds =P
ReplyDeleteTrinket, would you believe Gina caught a mating pair that night as we were going home and put it in a plastic bag that I provided. She wants some in her garden and I told her to give me some tadpoles when there are any. I don't have those frogs in my garden. So small but so LOUD!!!! Gina likes ALL kids of frogs, me, I get rid of the toads. I have the green and black "singing, chirping" frogs in Calamba.
ReplyDeletehi ixi! haha, sabi ko na nga ba birders lang makaka pansin sa frogs! :) gina's so funny! she actually took them home in a plastic bag?!? i don't think we have those frogs in our garden too, weird no, sa manila meron. lala says they like to burrow in the soil during the day.
ReplyDeletefyi, lala also id'd the chirping frogs as Green Pond Frog (Rana erythraea).
Awww! Why didn't we see this!
ReplyDeletehehe cool. i love my birder friends :) we're all geeks. hehe
ReplyDeleteang theory ko dyan sa extra digit...mutant na sya dahil sa pollution. nag eevlove na. hehe
scary, extra digits are not just caused by dirt but by hormone-mimicking chemicals. They would affect humans too.
ReplyDeleteHah! And Ely was asking if these are the edible frogs... eeewwwww.....
ReplyDeleteDouble eeeeeeeeeew. Hahaha!
ReplyDeleteKokaaaaak.
Compare:
ReplyDeleteCompare the feet. Why does this one have 4 digits?
ReplyDeletehmmm... i think they are supposed to have four digits.
ReplyDeletebut if you look at the manila museum frog, the last digit has two "ends".
Or, the fourth digit did not grow in the right place. Instead it grew from the third digit. Freaky froggy.
ReplyDeletemagandang cartoon character/mascot yan!
ReplyDelete