A frog is a frog is a frog

Have you ever heard that old saying, "A frog is a frog is a frog"?

What? You haven't? Well, fret not! I don't think that I've ever heard it either. In fact, I'm neither sure that anybody has heard it, nor that it was ever said. But it is a truism. Just look at any ranid frog up here in the USA and then compare Rana palmipes, the Neotropical green frog of Amazonia, and the similarities are immediately apparent.

Lately, rather than a question of appearance, my question has become one of abundance of the latter species. One time, and one time only (20 years ago), in one locale on the Rio Nanay, I found dozens of this pretty taxon. But since then I have neither seen nor heard of this species being found in Amazonian Peru. As folks are now wont to say, what's up with that? This has just become a January 2015 target taxon!

More photos below...

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.