Why toads croak

What drives frogs to call throughout the night from your backyard pond or local creek? The biggest clue is that in almost all frog species, only males call. In fact, that noise you hear in your backyard pond, local creek or dam is a sweet serenade- male frogs calling to attract female frogs. Because every species has a different sounding call, you can identify frog species just by listening. Because the aim of the encounter is to breed, male frogs typically call in or near water ponds, dams, streams and wetlands , where eggs are most often laid and tadpoles develop.

Some frogs call in the water, some on nearby rocks or on the bank, and others in trees or on the ground nearby. Different frog species breed in different kinds of water-bodies, so, not surprisingly, different frog species call from different kinds of water-bodies.

The Orange-thighed Tree Frog Litoria xathomera typically calls from trees around temporary ponds, and the Common Eastern Froglet Crinia signifera calls in shallow swamps, flooded glassland and puddles.

While there are variations on the theme, most male frogs travel to a mating site and begin vocalizing. When a female becomes interested in a male, she will allow him to approach her. The male will clasp on to her back in a behavior termed amplexus, during which he will fertilize the eggs as she expels them. Within the past few decades, scientists have documented female frogs emitting vocalizations for breeding purposes.

Often, female vocalizations are very quiet, and to human observers, inaudible amongst the male chorus. Sharon B. Emerson and Sunny K. Boyd demonstrated that not only do the females of some species emit vocalizations, but that these vocalizations varied from those of the males.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter. Awesome Fact: Frogs and toads from different species will adapt the same to local surroundings. Meaning they will adapt to the local conditions, and start to croak or stop at the same time as they react similar to the conditions at hand.

Share Tweet Pin. Partner Sites. Newton's Cradle Fridge Magnet. Heat Sensitive iPhone Case. Awesome Daily Staff One of our many staff writers who preferred to keep his privacy. Related Posts. Probably toads that stand out brown toads in dark grey soils are more in danger of predation and as such there is a level of predation selection. Complex mechanisms are involved in relation to the colour change in most amphibians, including the common frog Rana temporaria in relation to the background colour.

Confusingly, tree frogs in Europe are known to change their colour dramatically between dark grey in early morning to bright green or light grey later by mid-day yet neither of these species is particularly adapt at changing their colour to match that of their environment.

Similar species of treefrogs from North America however do change to adapt to their background. Some amphibians also dramatically change colour during breeding, with the Moor frog Rana arvalis in continental Europe as the best example.

Males become UV-blue during breeding and create an amazing visual spectacle at ponds and marshes where they congregate. However, the reasons for this colour change have remained relatively unclear given that the vast majority of social interactions between amphibians are auditory males sing during the breeding season to attract a high density of females in a small patch. Recent research indicates that while females remain brown during breeding the males change colour at that time not just in the human visible spectrum but also in UV spectrum but neither intensity nor wave length of this blue colour are correlated with body condition of the males.