Winter Frogs?

[peeplj]

It was 22 degrees here last night. (That's about -5 C if you are more familiar with that scale.)

I was just outside. There was a living frog on my front walk.

He hopped off. I did a double-take.

There aren't words for how weird that is.

--James

[Innocent Bystander]

Naaaaw... weird would be if he had asked you if you had any copies of the Watchtower for him to read.

[mutepointe]

aberration?

[dwest]

Ethylene glycol? On the other hand some frog species and salamanders are very cold tolerant. I have found both in ice rimmed ephemeral ponds every winter. Here is Virginia that will be in about two to three weeks.

[peeplj]

On second thought, maybe not so weird.

We have a few school-age kids in the neighborhood, maybe the frog was a pet or a project that they had released that day (or he had escaped from them).

Also, we have some large piles of leaves in our back yard just yet--no doubt it's warmer under them, maybe that's where he's living if he's a wild frog.

Naaaaw... weird would be if he had asked you if you had any copies of the Watchtower for him to read.

--James

[izzarina]

Not really the same thing, but on a similar vein, about a month ago, I saw a honey bee buzzing around a bit in sub zero temperatures. It was very strange. It was just barely flying, and only in very short spurts. I have no idea why it would be out...there didn't seem to be a place where it came from either, so I don't think it fell out of the hive...

[dwest]

Not really the same thing, but on a similar vein, about a month ago, I saw a honey bee buzzing around a bit in sub zero temperatures. It was very strange. It was just barely flying, and only in very short spurts. I have no idea why it would be out...there didn't seem to be a place where it came from either, so I don't think it fell out of the hive...

I lost four of my hives within minutes of each other one winter after a heavy snow one day and bright sun the next. The hives had been under some stress from acarine mites. I had been doing some supplemental feeding but not enough perhaps. With all the snow and that reflected light I figured they thought it was a warm sunny day. Most died within seconds of leaving the hive so there was a very noticeable trail of bodies straight out from the front of each hive entrance. As a hive bees can withstand very low temperatures, as long as they are in actual physical contact with the hive even if it is just a single leg contact they can stand much lower temperatures than they could individually. That spring I re-hived with Buckfast bees developed by Brother Adam in Devon.

[I.D.10-t]

Perhaps a lonely wood frog?

Breeding Mortality in the Wood Frog, Rana sylvatica (Anura: Ranidae), from Northcentral Arkansas

Throughout its range, the wood frog, the most boreal of
all the North American ranid frogs, is well known for its
brief, explosive breeding activity which typically occurs in
late winter or early spring (Martof, 1970). In northern
Arkansas, breeding characteristically follows heavy, late
winter (primarily February), rainfall (Trauth et al., 1989,
1995; Cartwright et al., 1998); wood frogs migrate to temporary
or permanent pools of water (e.g., woodland ponds
and man-made wildlife ponds) where oviposition of eggs
occurs. At several ponds, relatively, large communal adult
aggregations have been observed.

[dwest]

Perhaps a lonely wood frog?

I had no idea R. sylvatica ranged to Arkansas must be a disjunct population, very neat!

[s1m0n]

Wood frogs are famous for their ability to survive being frozen solid.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow ... cures.html

Cells in freeze-tolerant wood frogs experience the same mechanism of freezing injury as any other creatures' cells. The frogs freeze very slowly to a temperature often several degrees below freezing. This should destroy the frog's cells, yet those cells and the frog as a whole survive. How? A primary mechanism is through the production of glucose and its incorporation in the frog's cell. By lowering the amount of water that leaves the cell during freezing, the glucose offers protection against the rise in ionic concentration and excessive cell shrinkage, thereby reducing chemical harm.

While the wood frog spent millions of years perfecting the use of such chemicals, scientists in the field of cryobiology discovered the mechanism over just a few years. Today, every known cryopreservation protocol of sperm, embryos, red blood cells—literally every cell that survives freezing—employs a similar mechanism. The chemical substances that experts introduce into the cell are known as "cryoprotectants." These include glycerol, ethylene glycol, and dimethyl sulfoxide, among others.

[HDSarah]

Simon's right. We have wood frogs here in the boreal forest in interior Alaska, and they freeze solid in the winter.

Here's another article about them:
http://www.taigarescue.org/index.php?vi ... &tn_ID=776

They are cute little things. The article says they can be up to 7 cm long, but I've never seen one more than half that size.

[pipersgrip]

I have a pond and it was frozen solid, I could stand on it. All the frogs in there were frozen the other day, and I thought, "poor frogs", today it is much warmer, and they are all alive. That is funny you mentioned that James. Also, they are my garden's heroes. Them and the ladybugs keep my garden pest free, they truly are princes. They may be ugly, but you gotta love them.

[Lambchop]

I have a pond and it was frozen solid, I could stand on it.

Ah HA! I told everyone it was cold here and nobody believed me.

[HDSarah]

I have a pond and it was frozen solid, I could stand on it.

Ah HA! I told everyone it was cold here and nobody believed me.

Now the Floridians have discovered the secret to walking on water! We Alaskans do it for a large part of every year.