BAUDIN'S TREEFROG

According to my herp fieldguide we have three treefrog species here. Farther south and east where rainfall is greater, the forest more luxuriant and there's a higher species diversity, there are others. Our most commonly encountered treefrog species here is Baudin's Treefrog, SMILISCA BAUDINII, shown at http://www.uga.edu/srelherp/jd/jdweb/Herps/species/ForAnuran/Smibau.htm.

My first encounter with Baudin's Treefrog was about a month ago when one appeared on an arching, shaded date-palm petiole about a yard off the ground, crouching there in full view, day and night, for several sunny, very dry days. He was pale green and stood out against the palm's dark green foliage. I don't think I've ever seen a treefrog perch so conspicuously in one place.

My latest encounter was one morning this week when I flushed the commode in a bathroom with a door that's kept open. This one, pale brown with dark brown banding and spotting, had been hiding up under the seat's rim and he almost got flushed into unknown territory. At first it was hard to believe that this dark-banded frog was the same species as the pale green one I'd seen earlier.

Baudin's Treefrogs are distributed from southern Texas to Costa Rica, and they inhabit a wide variety of habitats, from our scrubby forests to high-elevation cloudforests, to low-elevation rainforests.

The herp book says that sometimes after rains this frog emerges in incredible numbers. There's one report of an outbreak of the species "so numerous on the trees as to bend down the branches." Their call is a series of loud, short, explosive WONK-WONK-WONKs. This is a much more robust species than I'm accustomed to in North America.