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Bullfrog

Lithobates catesbeianus

Description:

By all appearances, one would think it was a frog that had not shed its tail yet. However, this is a HUGE froglet! It was a good 4- 5 inches long without the tail. What is it????

Habitat:

Water, wetlands, fresh water (or not fresh enough water??)

Notes:

Found by the pond in the City Forest in Bangor, Maine. The pond in the City Forest is at the bottom of an old landfill, that today is a big green healthy looking hill that produces many types of grasses and hay every year. Birds of all sorts live here. Healthy frogs, fish, frog eggs tadpoles, froglets, leaches several inches long, beavers live here. Ducks regular here, and every year families of woodpeckers, redwings, goldfinches and sparrows have their young here. My dog swims here and retrieves for hour (if I let her). However, one can not deny that this pond is not the cleanest around. Around where the hill drains into the pond, there has been a red substance. Seems to always be contained on that specific area, in the mud. Mutated? Most likely. This frog was the only time I ever saw anything abnormal come out of this pond (unless you count the blue-green frog, or the huge shape-shifting blood sucker that wrapped its entire body around a fish, and my guess is he ate the fish).

1 Species ID Suggestions

AshleyT
AshleyT 10 years ago
Bullfrog
Lithobates catesbeianus


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8 Comments

AshleyT
AshleyT 10 years ago

It certainly isn't common, but some frogs just never lose their tail when they metamorphose. Could also be from pollution, no way to know.

OMG! sounds like the Place is contaminated and some of the animals are more susceptable to it... : (

Heather E.L.Gerquest
Heather E.L.Gerquest 11 years ago

I wonder if he even made it through that year. Poor thing.

GLeClair
GLeClair 11 years ago

He's probably supposed to be an adult, but the genes to remove the tail and tadpole skin patterns (and possibly other organs) are affected by the mutation.

Heather E.L.Gerquest
Heather E.L.Gerquest 11 years ago

He is bigger than the Bullfrogs (and green frogs) I've seen out there. Yet, you're right, he does have the same color pattern as a tadpole. I wonder, is it still a tadpole? Is it supposed to be an adult? I guess we may never really know. I have never seen another creature like this out there since.

GLeClair
GLeClair 11 years ago

Hmm, good information to know. As for species, I'm not entirely sure, but it seems to resemble a bullfrog (rana catesbeiana), as it still has the same color pattern as the tadpole, and even as a mutation, it seems rather too large to be a green frog tadpole.

Heather E.L.Gerquest
Heather E.L.Gerquest 11 years ago

Of course it is possible that this frog is mutated, and it certainly would not surprise me if that were the case. This pond is at the bottom of an old land fill that is now covered with soil and has been a huge grassy hill for many years. There used to be a small end of the pond that had some sort of red substance in the soil that anyone with a light colored dog would dread. By all appearances, this pond, bog area looks like a healthy habitat. Beavers live in it, fish live in it, very large orange-bellied leaches live in it, and a numerous variety of frogs. I have seen many many frogs, all have appeared healthy. One was blue-green in color that I thought was a bit bizarre, but healthy looking. Frog eggs are hatched here though. Water plants of all varieties grow here from cattails to a number of water grasses, and flowers. One thing that i have found lacking here are turtles. A few years back I took photos of numerous turtles, bathing on floating logs etc. I really haven't seen that since. We saw a turtle earlier that year, but it was not by the pond. It was near another wet area near by. My dog swims there. And recently we saw a diving duck that appeared to be a bit off his migratory habitat (the ocean), and without a partner. I had never seen a diving duck in a freshwater source, and was not familiar with what kind of duck it was right off. (Except for Loons, who are kind of diving ducks, but I think even they winter in salt water.) This area is not off a side of the road, but the area's history as a landfill definitely appears guilty in this case. I still would like to discover what kind of mutated frog we are looking at.

GLeClair
GLeClair 11 years ago

I'm unsure of the frog's identity, but frogs are good indicators of a healthy environment or an unhealthy environment. The large size and tail could be a result of pollution (For example, I've seen frogs with an extra leg near roadways). Could this possibly be a mutated frog?

Bangor, Maine, USA

Spotted on Jul 10, 2007
Submitted on Oct 10, 2012

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