As all of you know it has literally rained everyday for the past two weeks. All of this rain has saturated the ground with water so in many cases there is standing water through fields yards and wooded areas where once was dry. This can be obnoxious and annoying to us but for amphibians it is perfect. If you live in the country you certainly can tell this from the incredibly loud choir heard every evening of wood frogs, peepers and many others. This is also their time to mate and travel from wooded areas to ponds streams and lakes to reproduce.
Wood frogs,Rana sylvatica, a semi common frog found through out the united states is one of these in the choir. These frogs have some truly fascinating adaptations allowing them to survive over the winter months close to the surface in leaf litter or peat moss. They can tolerate the freezing of their blood and other tissues which is truly amazing as in order to do this you have be able to when you freeze not have your cells burst. They do this by producing large quantities of urea in there tissues and then turn the glycologen in their livers to glucose, these two adaptations allow for limited ice growth through these areas. The rest of a wood frogs body can freeze up to 65% of the water content in a wood frog can turn to ice. There is also sexual dimorphism in wood frogs as shown below the female is about 1.5 times larger than the male and is also a different color. This is common in animals and is found commonly in all the different animal kingdoms especially in insects.
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