The spring peepers (pseudacris crucifer) are singing again. It is a sure sign of spring. I heard them late in the evening from the old flooded basement of the broken down community center. The leftover basement collects water in the spring from melting snow and rain. That makes it a vernal pond. Like vernal ponds, it dries up in mid-summer.
The reason for the chorus of the male peeper frogs is to attract females for mating. The peeper with the loudest and most frequent peeping is the mate a female will choose. The males gain strong voices as they become 3 or 4 years old. They start singing during their second spring, but may not be strong enough to attract females at that time. A strong male can make 13,500 calls per night (Wikipedia).
After mating females will lay 900-1000 eggs in small brownish clumps of eggs. Tadpoles hatch with no legs and a long tail. They will swim around and eat plant matter such as algae or small insects. Mosquito eggs are helpful to get these small tadpoles started. As they mature the tail shrinks and the legs grow strong.
Even our roadside ditches will have peepers soon. They are very short-lived, but the peepers will sing there too. It takes these tiny tadpoles about 2-3 months to mature into hopping frogs, so I am not sure what the tadpoles do if the roadside ditch dries up before they are able to hop. Or maybe the little frogs mate and the females hop off to better, deeper water before they lay their eggs?
Lots of animals eat these little polywogs and later eat these small frogs. Snakes, skunks, dragonflies and salamanders will eat the tadpoles. Sandhill cranes and other large birds will find the adults are tasty morsels. After all, a 1 inch frog is a juicy snack for a predator. Even my gentle dog will chase and catch a peeper in the grass.
These small frogs have toe pads for climbing.That makes it easier for them to navigate fallen logs in the forest. They are able to move to better water as vernal ponds dry up in the summer. They often take shelter in leaf debris and broken logs. Most of their movement happens at night. Darkness offers protection from predators and from the sun’s heat.
When the peepers reach adult size they are brown with a dark cross-like shape on their back. An early scientist thought that these little singing frogs that appear at about Easter, should be given the species name crucifer.
Here in northern Wisconsin there is still a bit of snow in shady places. Peepers are a signal that spring has finally arrived and that summer will follow. It has been a long winter.
