It wasn’t supposed to be scary!

I thought you might enjoy this short clip of a young boy from Gorton South meeting our Chameleon and watching it feed. I am not so sure the session had the desired effect! 

Best wishes to Amanda Shore!

I would like to dedicate this post (and all the video entries posted this week), to Amanda Shore, who will be leaving the Museum tomorrow to take up a full-time school teaching position. I have been working with Amanda for some time, doing a little to help support the wonderful Early Years teaching she has been doing at the Manchester Museum.  It has been [...]

Frogs, foam, and fast exits!

Here are some photographs of the wonderful frog, Edalorhina perezi, from Ecuador. These frogs are usually brown to match their surroundings, but show their bright bold colours if disturbed by predators. They even enlarge themsleves and have two ‘eye spots’ when viewed from the rear, which makes them appear threatening to other animals. I found this pair breeding [...]

Re: Amphibian reproduction -Tadpoles blowing bubbles!

Talking of foam nesting frogs, here is short clip of the foam nest of the large South American frog Leptodactylus stenodema also found in Ecuador. I was out there with Dr Morley Read trying to record the calls of the frogs and get some nice footage. We managed to catch the intermittent mating call of the male, which as [...]

Re: Amphibian reproduction – Tree frogs use Bromeliads too!

Most of us tend to think that its only Poison-dart frogs, like the one posted last week, that use bromeliads to help develop their tadpoles. However, there are also some treefrogs who do the same, even some species belonging to the genus Isthmohyla that are found in Central America live and breed exclusively in these [...]

Fiji’s on extended honeymoon!

Earlier this week we recieved Chester Zoo’s female Fijian Iguana to pair up with our male.  Over the weekend we are hoping they will get together and mate. The new female has settled in well and has already been making amorous moves towards our Manchester male
Mondays update: The Chester female  is eating well and looking [...]

Adders Add up!

I have to tell you about yesterday when I went to Derbyshire especially to look for Adders – it was such a brilliant day. I just love this time of year, when everything is starting to come alive and all our native herps come out of hibernation. Well, yesterday I went with herpetologist Matt Wilson, Lorna Bousfield [...]

Dayglo tadpoles!

Further to my post about amphibian breeding biology, I thought you might be interested to hear about some flourescent yellow-green tadpoles I found in Ecuador. These belonged to the Tan-ridged Monkey Frog Phyllomedusa vaillanti. These beautiful frogs typically lay their eggs on vegetation overhanging streams and the male and female fold the leaf around the eggs as they are [...]

Tadpoles go piggy-back!

Here’s an unusual picture I took yesterday of a Poison-dart frog carrying a tadpole to a water-filled bromeliad after it had hatched. One frog had 5 tadpoles on its back, the other only this single tadpole.  It always amazes me how many reproductive strategies adult amphibians have and how different  tadpoles survive until metamorphosis.  In the future, I will post more on different amphibian [...]

A fantastic frog blog site!

For all interested in amphibians, I highly recommend that you check out the wonderful wordpress blog site http://frog9.wordpress.com/