Tuesday, July 19, 2011

What were the tiny frogs I saw in Georgia today?

It is next to impossible to guess what species they may be without images. It is certainly possible that they are toadlets. They may also be juvenile treefrogs. The smallest frogs and toads in the USA are larger as adults than what you described. The oak toad (Bufo quercicus), for example, is about 3/4 -1.3 inches long when they are adult, and the little grass frog (Limnaoedus ocularis) is about 3/4 of an inch long as adults as well. BTW, I don't use the name Pseudacris ocularis for the little grass frog because the taxonomy of the genus Pseudacris is a royal mess and in need of sane revision by a non-cladist who does not slavishly follow Willi Hennig's inane Principle of Holophyly, which states that a taxon must include both its ancestor and all of the descendant species of this ancestor, regardless of how different they may be. Using this principle, humans can and have been classified in the same genus as the gorilla and the chimpanzee. It is sheer insanity.

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