adventures in china

Where have you been? We have spent one month waiting for you, with only an occasional afternoon drizzle to get our hopes up. Well, I am glad you finally made it. Friday and Saturday it rained nearly all day, today it looks nice and cloudy too. This means good frogs!

Leptolalax (ventripunctatus?) This is an unusual frog of which nothing is known about, although they seem to be all over the stream in the rainforest section of the gardens.

We call these “slippery frog” because they are hard to hold onto. Males are larger than females, which is unusual (it’s usually the other way around), and they have giant heads which Jocelyn says they use to battle each other with?

Okay, this is what I came here to see, a real flying frog. Not the little R. bipunctatus I posted before. These are the real deal. They live high up in the canopy where they literally fly from tree to tree (some species have been recorded gliding 80 meters or more!), but during the rainy season, if you’re lucky, you will find one at night venturing down to a pool of water to breed. The rains have come, and I’ve been lucky.

This is a good one too – Philautus menglaensis, a new species to the project. They’re call sounds like a mantella.

And a foam nest. The tree frogs around here make these frothy egg-filled things. They usually put them over water, and then the tadpoles hatch out, dropping down below after a day or two. This one was placed over a mossy rock however, and I watched an unfortunate tadpole fall a good meter from the nest, hit the rock, and then eventually wriggle off the side into the water.