Look what I found in my pond !

While doing some maintenance of my koi pond I found this visitor and just wanted to share him with everyone. I made him my avatar! Wish I had a better camer. Enjoy!

Thats cute. I bet it never thought it be this famous.

[josh raysin]

cute pic. that a lil cuban tree frog?

[slaytonp]

We never find cool stuff like this is SE Idaho. We don't even have out-door Koi ponds here. Tell this ignoramus what it is. (I refuse to make my avitar, if I ever get one, a Western spade-foot toad.) :lol:

[defaced]

Very nice! I love finding frogs in my yard. I see it as a sign that things are in good shape and in balance.

All the pics of the Western spade foot toad I'm pulling up have a vertical pupil, the one Leecey posted has horizontal pupils. Two frogs with the same common name possibly?

I noticed you're from Fl, here's a page I found that has picture of frogs from fFl, it may help you ID it.

http://www.wec.ufl.edu/extension/frogs/

[Grassypeak]

Mike,
I think Patty meant that the Western Spade Foot was the only frog she was likely to find in her back yard.

[defaced]

Ah, now that makes sence. Thanks Chris.

[slaytonp]

Thanks for unconfussing that, Chris.

As to the pupils, the spadefoot toad we find here has vertical pupils, as do all of those that are commonly called "spadefoot toads--" genus Scaphiopus and the Mexican burrowing toad, Rhinophynus dorasali. Ours is Scaphiopus intermontanus, which is more commonly called the Great Basin spadefoot, not the Western spadefoot, as I said before. What was mentioned was interesting, because all of the other North American toads (genus Bufo,) have horizontal pupils like most frogs do,as well. I'd never really noticed this, before.

Someone foisted one of these spade-foots off on me that he'd found in the garden he was tilling. Since he knew I kept some dart frogs, he thought I would be thrilled speechless with it. Well, I was at least speechless, because if you can't say anything nice, you don't say anything at all, my mother told me. I kept it for awhile just to seem appreciative, before finding a suitable place to turn it loose to do it's own subterranian toad thing. It was sort of like having your own pet lump of dirt that you had to get up at 3:00 AM to feed in case it condescended to unbury itself long enough to bother eating an earthworm or some other offering. It was actually sort of cute in a grumpy way, but it's rather difficult to fully appreciate a nocturnal toad one has to get up at 3:00 AM to ever see and to feed. I kept it in a sandy desert vivarium with the proper moisture variation in the substrate, near my bed. I don't think the toad ever made any noise, but when he unburied himself and grumped around for his dinner, it somehow always woke me up and I would get up and present him with an earthworm, mealworms, a cricket or or sometimes moths in season. He would gobble them down, maybe take a short dip in the water dish, poop, then sit there for a minute before disappearing backwards into the sand. You couldn't even see his feet moving or digging. He would just sit there and rather rapidly sink butt first into the dirt until he was all gone. It was a great stage effect if one wanted to wake up and appreciate this at 3:00 AM.

Hey Patty, Down here anything goes! I once saw an alligator battling with a python and a komodo dragon was waiting to take on the winner!

[josh raysin]

here is a cuban tree frog