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By Root 720 0

in breeding ponds but always in the woods, where they will overwinter under the fallen leaves. No bullfrog, leopard frog, or green frog makes the same “mistake” of calling as though jumping the gun to begin the breeding ritual six months ahead of schedule. But wood frogs do call, although not as frequently as the peepers and although the calls are usually very brief and isolated. Once while I was up in a spruce tree in Maine during November I suddenly heard a wood frog below me; then another joined it; then a third. They were separated by about 100 feet. There was no pool in sight. The three called for about ten minutes, and then resumed their silence. These were probably their last peeps of the season.

These fall-calling frogs are already filled with egg masses like those they will deposit half a year later, as I found out by accident. I had built an aviary enclosing a section of woods, and one morning at dawn in September one of the ravens inside captured and killed a frog. I immediately confiscated it to make a positive identification: it was a plump female wood frog carrying a full cluster of eggs that looked identical to what females freshly out of hibernation deposit in their breeding pools in April. If the frog had frozen the next day and thawed out in April, it would have awakened to another day of very similar temperature and photoperiod, and it might not know the difference, or might not know that anything had changed. The seven-month interval until these eggs would have been laid would have been, to a cold or frozen frog under leaves and snow and ice, a time of death when a minute is an eternity and an eternity a minute. The end of summer is also the beginning.

Selected References

1. Preparing for Summer

Bünning, E. 1973. The Physiological Clock, 3rd ed. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Denny, F. E., and E. N. Stanton. 1928. “Localization of Response of Woody Tissue to Chemical Treatment That Breaks the Rest Period,” American Journal of Botany 15: 337–344.

Gwinner, E., and W. Wiltschko. 1980. “Circannual Changes in Migratory Orientation in the Garden Warbler, Sylvia borin,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 7: 73–78.

Gwinner, E. 1986. Zoophysiology, Vol. 18, Circannual Rhythms. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.

Pengelley, E. T., R. C. Aloia, and B. Barnes. 1979. “Circannual Rhythmicity in the Hibernating Ground Squirrel, Citellus lateralis, under Constant and Hyperthermic Ambient Temperature,” Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology 61A: 599–603.

Schmidt-Koenig, K. 1975. Migration and Homing in Animals. Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.

2. Awakening

Pearson, T. G. 1917. Birds of America. Garden City Books, Garden City, N.Y.

3. Wood Frogs

Banta, D. M. 1914. “Sex Recognition and Mating Behavior of the Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica,” Biological Bulletin 26: 171–183.

Berven, K. A. 1981. “Mate Choice in the Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica,” Evolution 35: 707–722.

Berven, K. A., and T. A. Grudzen. 1991. “Dispersal in the Wood Frog (Rana sylvatica): Implications for Genetic Population Structure,” Evolution 44: 2047–2056.

Cornell, T. J., K. A. Berven, and G. J. Gamboa. 1989. “Kin Recognition by Tadpoles and Froglets of the Wood Frog Rana sylvatica,” Oecologia 78: 312–316.

Emlen, S. T. 1968. “Territoriality in the Bullfrog, Rana catesbeiana,” Copeia 1968: 240–243.

———. 1976. “Lek Organization and Mating Strategies of the Bullfrog,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 1: 283–313.

Emlen, S. T., and L. W. Oring. 1977. “Ecology, Sexual Selection, and the Evolution of Mating Systems,” Science 197: 215–223.

Howard, R. D. 1978. “The Evolution of Mating Strategies in Bullfrogs, Rana catesbeiana,” Evolution 32: 859–871.

———. 1980. “Mating Behaviour and Mating Success in Woodfrogs, Rana sylvatica,” Animal Behaviour 28: 705–616.

Howard, R. D., and A. G. Kluge. 1985. “Proximate Mechanisms of Sexual Selection in Wood Frogs,” Evolution 39: 260–277.

Taigen, T. L., and K. D. Wells. 1985. “Energetics of Vocalization by an Anuran Amphibian (Hyla versicolor),” Journal of Comparative