Frogs. Part Two. Expanded Cast of Characters.

I know you've all been on the edge of your seats, waiting to hear what else we found out in our frogging expeditions.  Well, hold on to your fishing hats...

gettin' our money's worth
out of those dollar store nets

We've been checking back, and it seems the teensy tiny frogs are disappearing! We've learned that that in the stage we last wrote about here in Frogs Part 1, the froglets were about 12 weeks old (we call this the teensy tiny stage).  What we are struggling to figure out is how quickly they grow from that point on, because while there are way fewer teensy tiny frogs, there are WAY more big frogs.  But we did not find many in the middle size range.  And the big frogs want to hang out by the edge of the pond, just like the little ones did.

can't you see i'm trying to sleep?

yep, i'm lookin' at YOU
and anyway, i might be a toad

Could they have grown that much that quickly?  Hopefully we have a herpetologist GAP reader who can solve that mystery for us.  As the Heiress asked, "they growed from fingernail size to as big as my hand so fast?"... umm, good question.

the princess and the frog.

But if you're looking for frog books at the CH libary, you might want to check out another branch, 'cause we pretty much checked all of them out.  One of the things we were trying to figure out is whether Pastorius is teeming in frogs or toads.  Here's Luke's five year old account of what he learned:

"Well, I know that frogs are more different than toads.  Frogs are smoother and shinier and slimier and toads are bumpier.  Frogs like to be wet and toads like to hide in the grass.  And they both are little baby tadpoles and then their front feet grow and then they are tiny little frogs or toads and then they growed real fast into big ones."

One book taught us that toads ARE frogs, just a slightly different branch of the frog family tree.  The things we learn from children's books!

But our latest expedition revealed more than just the tiny amphibians.  We also saw more big fish and two big turtles.  We lovingly named them Snapper and Boxer.  They like to hang out together and were very careful not to come anywhere near our noise.  They are also very good at camouflaging, so use your detective skills to spot them in the picture:

Boxer and Snapper

Despite all of these scientific findings, the highlight of the trip BY FAR was the dragon.  Yes, did you know Pastorius Park is home to a dragon?  Stay tuned for more on that...