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| Larena Woodmore | profile | all galleries >> Frogs | tree view | thumbnails | slideshow |
| In Winter 2004, I found out that there were Quacking Frogs under my house. When I tried to do some research there didn't seem to be much information available. There's a lot about the Quacking Frog's habit of group matings, quite a lot about the quacking, and not much else. I could only find 3 photos on the net. I decided to take my own photos and try to find out more about these frogs by observing them myself. If you scroll to the bottom of this page, you can access the photos and blogs of my observations from 2004 and 2005. In 2006, we had very little rain and I only saw three frogs before the puddles dried up. Scientific Name Crinia georgiana Identification Size: Adult Quacking Frogs can vary in size. Everything I've read says they can be up to 4 centimetres, but the spotted one here is 6 cm. There is no size difference between males an females. Colour / Markings: The two main distinguishing features of Quacking Frogs are their coloured eyelids, which may be red or gold, and their red thighs.    Quacking frogs come in a wide variety of colours an markings. The colour of an individual frog can also vary from day to day. I'm not sure why - possibly hunger or readiness for breeding? Most Quacking Frogs are a shade of brown, with lines, zigzags or blotches in a different shade of brown, but the markings can also be yellow, red or orange.       It is also common for lines on a Quacking Frog's legs to continue from one leg to another when the legs are folded, and for lines on the skin around the eyes to continue on the eyes themselves.  
Quacking Quacking frogs get their name from the fact that their croak sounds like a duck's quack. To attract females, the males quack all night and from time to time in the day from about May to October. ie, when the weather is wet. The thing that makes the quacking really interesting is the frogs' habit of quacking back to each other. One frog quacks, and another replies with about the same number of quacks. So if the first frog quacks five times, the reply will usually consist of 5 or more quacks. They will also quack back at anything that sounds like it might be another frog. This includes the chirps from arming or disarming a car alarm, the noise made by some birds, and even humans. It's possible to have quite a long 'conversation' with some particularly chatty individuals. For a demonstration of a frog quacking back to a human, click here to view a 477kb Windows Media file. Eating It is not known what Quacking Frogs eat. However, related species eat small invertebrates. It also appears that they might eat any unhatched eggs a week or two after tadpoles appear. |
Quacking Frogs 2004 |
Frog Blog 2004 |
Quacking Frogs 2005 |
Frog Blog 2005 |
Frog Blog 2007 |
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