Looking for little frogs...Watch your step!
One of the more dangerous creatures in the rainforest... a scorpion! It's only about two inches long, but I was sure to avoid it.
Another amazing stick bug. This one really wanted its picture taken!
Yes, the coqui do come in small sizes! This is a baby coqui that we found on the forest floor.
Adult male coqui frog (about 2 inches long)
30 comments:
Hi, Mr. Lafond,
I'm confused about your calling the little frog a "baby" coqui. Aren't baby frogs tadpoles?
Thanks,
PaulaF
Hi, Mr. Lafond,
I can see how you counted the trees in the forest, but how did you count the frogs at night? How do you know you didn't miss a bunch? How do you know you didn't count the same one more than once?
PaulaF
Matt,
Your blog is incredible. What wonderful pictures with great perspective. How many people were counting frogs in your 100 meter section? Do the frogs tend to freeze in position to blend in (it would make counting easier :>)) or do they quickly hop away when startled?
Have a good one.
Marcy Perry
That little baby frog is so tiny and cute! My students here at Charlestown High School really like the pictures you have been posting. They were asking if you could bring a bunch of baby frogs back with you. :)
Keep up the good work,
Ms. Durling
Wow, those coqui sure are cute and small. It's amazing they even survive! Oooohhhh, a scorpion! That must have been cool. Anyways, you missed the poetry recitations! Everyone was really good!
~Emmzy Jan.
Congratualations on the frogs!!
Besides that scorpion, are there any other dangerous or poisonus animals in the rainforest that you're working in? Have you encountered any others?
See you on Monday!
~Kaileigh:)
The coqui are so cute! Can you post the exact number later?
Thanks!
Katie
WoW!!!! Cute froggies!!!Be careful of those scorpiens!!! Can't wait to try the webcast again tomorrow!
Matt, How can you count frogs if they keep moving? Presumably it's a guestimate, or is there a special technique?
Bob L
Wow! Those pix are sooooo cool! How did you find the coqui frog if it's so tiny and what makes a scorpian so dangerous? Anyway, everthing here in Sudbury is as normal as normal can be and I hope your having a good time in Puerto Rico!!
:-)
~Megan D.
Hi Mr. Lafond, I think the pictures are really neat and interesting!!! Are you having a good time down in Puerto Rico? I can't believe how small that baby coqui was, it almost was as small as an ant. I can't wait to see you back in school with the Kiwi team!!
- Charlotte
What exciting work. As you survey the frogs, how do you avoid counting the same one more than once? How many species of frogs do you suppose you found within your plot?
I promise not to have the Kiwi students surveying their plot for more than three hours!
Good luck,
Ms M
Hi frog lovers,
I'm going to try to explain the techniques we used during our frog survey on Tuesday night.
First, we went out during the night because the frogs are nocturnal and are most active at night. We set up a 100 meter string in the forest earlier in the week to serve as our transect line. A transect line is simply a line that you count plants or animals on as you encounter them. In fact, this same transect line is used by other frog scientists that come here throughout the year. It is a sampling of what might exist elsewhere in the forest.
We split ourselves into two teams... each covering 50 meters of the transect. Each team had 6 people. Three people were crawling on hands and knees to identify frogs on the forest floor, while two people walked behind the crawlers looking for frogs in the trees. The last person was the data recorder. We tried to only count frogs within 5 feet of the transect line.
The frogs, as you can see by the picture, can be really small. Therefore, we may have missed some. Similarly, the frogs might jump ahead of us... so some may have been counted twice. This is the difficult part, so we did the best that we could. It is understood that the data we collected was a fair estimation.
It turned out that we only identified three kinds of frogs: common coqui, wightmanai, and white lip. The wightmanai (wit-man-eye) are typically on the forest floor, and have yellow bellies. While the coqui are usually on the leaves of the trees. There are of course exceptions to this. In general, the frogs remained still until we tried to grab them.
I hope this gave you an idea of how we conducted the survey.
Mr.L
PaulaF and other curious frogers,
What's really cool about many of the frogs here, and apparently in other parts of Latin America too, is that they don't have a tadpole stage. This means that they are born as little frogs!
Hey! We all miss you and can't wait to see you back on Kiwi! That live video cast that we saw today was soooooo cool! Too bad it didn't work that well. By the way, did you almost step on a coqui by accident at all? They are so small? If you were allowed to, would you bring back baby coqui? We could add them to our aqurium, they like wet, don't they? Could you tell me a little about the coqui habitat when you gat back?
-Kathryn N.
I hope that the rest of the trip is safe. The stick bugs are awesome.
-Marty
Was it coo, to find the scorpian or was it scary? Did you think it was going to hurt you? Iv;e never seen one before! Thnx!
i love the picture of the "baby" coqui and the scorpion! they both are so cool! keep postin' those pics! hope your having a great time and having fun in the rain!
-emu jr.
Compared to the coqui how common are the wightmanai and the white lip? Are they a different kind of coqui? Is one more common than the other?
Thanks! It has been really exciting following your trip in Puerto Rico
Hi Mr. Lafond!
How's Puerto Rico?! Cute froggies!! Watch out for those scorpians!! Post more pictures k? See you Monday!!
~Kayla
Hi Mr. lafond, it was realy neat to do the webcast in class today. I'm glad you had asucessfull frog survey. I learnd alot but I didnt get to ask my question, here it is;
Where did you find the most coqui?
Also, do you ever eat any of the wild plants growing in the rainforest? if so which ones if not why not?
~Claire; kiwi's Claire
P.s. I MISS YOU HAVE HOPE YOUR HAVEING FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How's Puerto Rico? Is it hard to sleep at night when the frogs are so loud? How many frogs did you count on Tuesday night?! I liked the picture of you and your "twin"!! It was hilarious!!
~Kayla
Hey Mr. Lafond,
I hope that you are having agreat time in the rainforest...thanks for keeping us updated!=) I love learning about all the coqui! I've learned more then I ever thought i would!
We allmiss you and we hope your having a great time! Can't wait until you come back!
~Darby
Hey everyone,
thanks for your great questions!
Kathryn N, I was a bit concerned about stepping on baby coquis, especially after discovering how many there actually are on the forest floor. I think they hopped out of the way! :>
Sarah, Kaileigh, Jessica, Kayla,
the scorpions are pretty rare, so I was psyched to see one. I actually stuck my hand pretty close to get the picture (for the blog of course!) but I was careful to avoid its tail. I'm not sure how poisonous their sting is, but I'm okay not knowing personally. There are not too many other things to be concerned about here in the forest. A few plants, like razor grass, are annoying, but easily avoided once you know what they look like.
Stephen, we fond many more wightmanai than coqui, and even less white lip. I was told this is because of the section of the forest we were in. Near the research station, there seem to be more coqui frogs. They each have their own unique song. The coqui do a loud, high-pitched "Co-Key" while the wightmanai do a "worp, worp, worp."
Claire, I found most of the coqui in the leaves of the trees. Also, I haven't eaten any of the plants from the forest, although I'm sure there are many that are edible. They have a great graden here at the research station, so I have eaten fresh lettuce with most meals.
Talk to you all soon!
Mr. L
thats so cool!!!
about how many frogs did you find??
also, what tools did you use to find the frogs?
--
sarah g.
Hi, Mr. Lafond,
What do you eat there and do any animals get to it? Once your done counting frogs you'll start counting people that have missed you here.
Gabe
Hi Mr. Lafond
Just curios, aren't the smaller scorpions more poisonous, or is that not true in Puerto Rico?
Sam C.
The frogs look like they are hard to find. What do you have planned for the following days? Hope you have a nice rest of the trip!!!!
Jesse B.
Have you run into many stickbugs? What is the most common animal that you have seen? Does it rain at a certain time in the day? When I was in Florida it would always begin to rain in the afternoon.
Sarah, Katie,
We found about 830 frogs in 100 meters. This seems like a ton of frogs!... but it explains why it is so loud here at night. There are frogs everywhere!!!!
Surveying the frogs is not an exact science. There were definitely frogs we missed... especially when you consider how small and how well-camouflaged they are. The only tool we used was headlamp.
Gabe, we have been eating really good food made by a helper here at the research station. We take turns helping prepare meals and doing the dishes. I like to cook more than clean, and fortunately, there are others that like to clean more than cook. We have been having a lot of bean, beef, and chicken. We also have been eating freshly picked lettuce from the garden here every night.
Sam, I'm not sure about the scorpions... the ones here are small... 2 inches at most. You'll have to find that out for me.
Jesse, I am going to post my plan for the next couple days...
Drew, it didn't rain the first two days here, but it has rained on and off consistently since then. It rains every morning, every afternoon, and every night! It is not necessarily like clockwork though...It just seems to come whenever.
Thanks for the great questions. See everyone soon, Mr. Lafond
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