Atlanta Botanical garden to feature sculptured plants - Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

Atlanta Botanical garden to feature sculptured plants - Atlanta News, Weather, Traffic, and Sports | FOX 5

Exhibit Update ...

One of our new exhibit animals (Dendrobates tinctorius azureus) donated by the Georgia Aquarium 

These beautiful frogs are getting used to their new habitat in the Fuqua Conservatory lobby

Weekend visitors looking for frogs after I told them there were 17 frogs and 4 tadpoles in this Costa Rica exhibit. There is a newly metamorphosed Lemur froglet in the center of the image.

There are 11 critically endangered Lemur frogs (Agalychnis lemur) in the Costa Rica exhibit. Two of them (pictured above) are metamorphs, meaning they were recently tadpoles. Lemur frogs sleep under leaves — you can see how they would be impossible to find from the front of the exhibit.

Here is a video of two of our adult Lemur frogs, in amplexus on exhibit. If you watch and listen closely, you can here the male (the one on her back) calling!

Ask the frog staff: How many tadpoles actually survive into adulthood?

Hi Mark. A frog friend and I were at the lily pond today and it was rife with tadpoles of various sizes and stages. Two questions:

1) It looked like the two ducks might be feeding on them ... do they?
2) How many tadpoles actually survive to frog adulthood?

— Christine C.

This particular topic has come up a lot recently, and one of our visitors beautifully photographed a heron eating a rather large bullfrog out of the lily pond in the Children's Garden. It was a graphic interaction, but demonstrates how vital amphibians are in food webs and one of the reasons we use to illustrate how important it is to keep amphibians around. Almost everything eats them, or their tadpoles, or their eggs ... or all three.  Many animals eat frogs exclusively (including some frog species!), and the herons at the Garden obviously love them. I have seen ducks eating tadpoles quite rapidly. In fact, my amphibian class last summer quantified how quickly different aquatic birds could consume tadpoles of different densities.

One of the main purposes of tadpoles (as primary consumers) is to convert plants into protein for other animals to then consume. That's at least one reason why most amphibians produce hundreds (or thousands) of tadpoles in a season. The thought is that out of all of that production, 2 will survive into adulthood to replace mom and dad.

The bullfrogs here at the Garden (like the one pictured below) all found their way here naturally and are hardly 'our' frogs ... They have chosen the Garden as their habitat to live and breed, and as in any habitat, nature prevails. Bullfrogs regularly eat other frogs, and also insects, lizards, birds, snakes (including rattlesnakes!) and small mammals. We are fortunate that the Garden provides a habitat for wildlife to persist amidst the urban landscape.

The incredible photographs posted below were taken by Jan Wendler, a frequent visitor to the Garden.

Heron snatches prey

The heron now has to rotate its prey to the proper orientation for swallowing (head first) Not an easy task without hands!

Thanks again to Jan, for all the wonderful photographs ...

A gopher frog first! DNR nongame news Feb. 28

A gopher frog first! DNR nongame news Feb. 28

At the Gopher Frog Release Site

Williams Bluff. The beautiful release site of head-started Gopher frogs on protected Nature Conservancy land.

This week, I had the opportunity to join Dr Maerz from UGA with Robert Hill and David Brothers from Zoo Atlanta to help sample Gopher frogs at the release site in Early County, GA. Gopher frogs (Lithobates capito) inhabit burrows but don't build them themselves. They 'share' underground accommodations made by Gopher tortoises, Pocket gophers and mother nature (i.e. tree stumps).

It's not easy to find a frog which lives underground ... and this was my first opportunity to use a camera scope (am LED lit camera at the end of a 20' snake) so we could see down these long subterranean  burrows. We were looking for released Gopher frogs that were still making a living at the release site.

Dr John Maerz (UGA)  and Robert Hill (Zoo Atlanta) sampling a Gopher tortoise burrow with the camera scope

Zoo Atlanta's Robert Hill (top) and David Brothers working the camera down the deep tortoise burrow, looking for Gopher frogs. Notice the length of 'snake' up the left of the image, which enable the camera to view 20+ feet down into a Gopher tortoise burrow.

One of the factors contributing to the decline of Gopher frogs is habitat loss. Loose sandy soils, with Long leaf pine and Wire grass (pictured above) has been altered, developed and generally reduced across the SE US. As a result, animals which rely on this habitat, such as: Gopher tortoises, Gopher frogs and Indigo snakes are in decline.

A Gopher tortoise detection! Which typically signifies you have reached the bottom of the burrow. 

John Maerz shows off a particularly colorful male Sceloporus. (check out the blue chin)

A closer shot of the beautiful Sceloporus

A dense 'cloud' of Scaphiopus larvae. Spadefoot toads are one of the author's absolute favorite species

A wider view of the Spadefoot toad cloud, with the outline drawn on the insert. Spadefoots are explosive and rapid breeders, and can go from egg to toadlet in as few as 8 days!

I had a wonderful time in south Georgia, and I hope to have many more opportunities there!