Froggie Say What?!?!?

A cool new frog has been discovered in Cajun Country. A so called “cryptic” species: It was right under our nose all along!

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Aieee! New frog species calls with a Cajun twang

04:46 PM CST on Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Associated Press

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FROM: http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080130_mo_cajuntwang.73c964f2.html
(accessed 31 January 2008)

USGS: Listen to frog calls

NEW ORLEANS – To Cajun cooking and Cajun culture you can add the Cajun frog.

The brown-and-tan, ground-dwelling Cajun chorus frog – kin to spring peepers and green tree frogs – was introduced this month to the scientific world in the journal “Zootaxa.”

“They’re probably calling in Louisiana right now if it rained recently. They breed in January, February and March,” said Emily Lemmon, who discovered the quarter-sized critter while studying frogs for her doctorate in evolutionary biology.

National park ranger and Cajun musician Bruce “Sun Pie” Barnes chuckled at the news. “A Cajun chorus frog. Is it saying ‘Aiee!’?”

Barnes, who works at the Jazz National Historic Park in New Orleans, used to identify frog calls – including chorus frogs – for paddlers on moonlight canoe tours of the Jean Lafitte National Park’s nearby Barataria unit. He said he’d be out listening again, now that he knows this frog is special.

The discovery appears to be the first of a new U.S. frog species since 1985, when Paul Moler identified the Florida bog frog, said Christopher Austin, assistant curator of amphibians and reptiles at Louisiana State University’s Museum of Natural Science.

These frogs, found in western Mississippi, eastern Texas and Oklahoma, all of Arkansas and far southern Missouri, don’t say “ribbit,” “jug-a-rum” or even “ouaouaron” – the bullfrog’s call and name in Cajun French.

Their call is closer to a quick, slightly rising “R r r r a a a a? R r r r a a a a? R r r r a a a a?” — or a miniature New Year’s ratchet.

Tags: "Sun Pie", Arkansas, Barataria, Bruce Barnes, bullfrog, Cajun French, Cajun Frog, chorus frog, Christopher Austin, cryptic species, Ecology, Emily, Evolutionary Biology, Florida Bull Frog, green tree frog, Jazz National Historic Park, Jean Lafitte National Park, Lemmon, Louisiana, Louisiana State University, Mississippi, Museum of Natural Science, new frog, New Orleans, New Species, News, Oklahoma, Paul Moler, spring peeper, Texas, Uncategorized, zootaxa