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!
