Frogs House

Description:Typically, bullfrogs reach up to eight inches in length (measured from snout to vent), but larger specimens occur in some areas. The overall coloration is green or gray brown with brown spots, especially on older specimens. Some brown, yellow, albino and even blue individuals have been observed. Adults have a conspicuous round eardrum, called the tympanum, located on either side of the head. The tympanum is up to twice as large as the eye. A ridge of skin starts behind the eye, runs over the eardrum, and ends at the base of the front legs. There are no lateral ridges on the back. The hind legs are large and powerful and may be banded or blotched with brown. Males have a singular throat pouch that is pale to bright yellow. Females have a white throat. Tadpoles are drab olive green with many tiny black pinhead-sized specks scattered throughout the tail fin and on the back. They may grow up to five inches in length.

SIZE: Snout to vent length: 9-15 cm (2.5-6 in); record 20 cm (8 in) Legs length: 17-25 cm (7-10 in)

Diet:This is where things get a bit hairy for my taste. These guys have a voracious appetite and will eat anything that it can swallow, including invertebrates and small vertebrates such as mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, even turtles and other frogs. bullfrogs have teeth in the roof of their mouth and a muscular tongue capable of flipping prey into their mouth. They’ll eat lots and lots of really big bugs, fish (guppies, I am told, are pretty good feeders) and mice. Pretty much anything that will fit in their mouths. Large insects and worms should be left on the rocks, though these guys will eat them from the surface of the water too. Dead mice are best offered either by hand or using forceps (again, get the kind with round balls on the ends so you don’t risk injuring the frogs when he lunges at the food!) It is generally recommended that you house these frogs alone (except for breeding) in order to avoid cannibalism. Eeek!

Habitat:These guys are native to the eastern United States, ranging from as far north as Nova Scotia, all the way down to central Florida. They also live as far west as Wisconsin and the Rockies and were introduced widely throughout Colorado, British Columbia, California, and other western states.

They tend to live in vegetation along the edge of large, slow moving, bodies of freshwater.

Where they occur naturally, bullfrogs help keep down the mosquito and insect population. But in some places where they have been introduced, they eat so much that they can destroy local populations of native frogs species!

Their populations can bloom out of control because they don’t really have natural predators (infact, they can give off some nasty toxic secretions from their poison glands (called paratoid glands) that can poison a dog if it tries to eat one!).

Reproduction:Fertilization is external in ranid frogs. In the mating grasp or amplexus, the male rides on top of the female, grasping her with his forelimbs just posterior to her forelimbs. The female bullfrogs deposits her eggs in the water and the male simultaneously releases sperm.

Breeding begins in late spring or early summer. Males defend and call from territories. The call, reminiscent of the roar of a bull hence the frogs’s common name, attracts the female into a territory where mating takes place. A female may produce up to 20,000 eggs in one clutch

Distribution:bullfrogs are perhaps the most widely distributed amphibian in North America. Originally, their range extended from Nova Scotia south to central Florida and west to the Rocky Mountains, but introductions into western lands (for instance, into Utah around the start of the 20th century) have confused the western extent of the original range. Today, bullfrogs are found across most of the lower 48 states as well as in Mexico, Cuba and Jamaica.