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National Geographic : 1973 Jul
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We knew that hylids-tree frogs-were everywhere around us. Noisy males, singing shrill love songs, produced a nearly over whelming din. What some gifted composer could do, I thought, with those urgent cheeps, chirps, trills, and metallic clinks, all mega phoned by bulging vocal sacs! Through his long years of experience, Doug could name the genus and species of many of the singers we heard along the trail. "Hyla loquax," he would announce, or, "That's an Agalychnis saltator." He forged ahead of me, then plunged off the trail into the quagmire. The darkness promptly swallowed him except for an oc casional firefly-like glimmer of his light. For a while I heard him talking to the frogs as he stalked them through the muck: "Don't jump, you little devil," or, "Oh, what a beauty!" But the inevitable evening rains soon obliterated his voice. Within half an hour Doug was back, jubi lantly displaying his catch, several hylids and miscellaneous other frogs blazing with multi colored patterns-green, orange, red, blue. To identify some would require paging through the reference books. I added the few frogs I had found along the trail. Almost any of them could have sat on a postage stamp with space to spare. Wryly I recalled the giants of the frog family I had collected earlier in Africa: They measured more than 30 inches long from nose to toes, and weighed nearly seven pounds each.* Hidden Cisterns Hold Living Treasure Some days after leaving Puerto Viejo, Doug and I observed an especially curious frog habitat. We stopped our jeep alongside the road where the jungle was bearded with Spanish moss. Other bromeliads grew there profusely. Although not parasites, brome liads-also known as epiphytes, or air plants -cling for support to tree trunks and branch es, even to fence posts and telephone wires. I watched Doug scrutinize every brome liad of the bracket variety he could reach. Each was a rosette of sharply pointed blades flaring out from a central core that was firmly rooted to the supporting host, *NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC, July 1967. "Look here," he said, gently drawing back one leaf blade after another to reveal a pool of rainwater at the base of each. Mosquito and other insect larvae thrive in such natural cisterns. But it was something four-legged moving near a pool's edge that caught my eye-a Lil liputian creature no larger than my wrist watch dial (pages 130-31). From its flattened head of brilliant green bulged two enormous eyes, each a coal of glowing scarlet slitted vertically by a black pupil. Flashes of Color May Save Frogs' Lives The creature, perched on disklike toe pads, hurtled out with a wild leap to land on a shrub about six feet away. In midair its widely splayed legs revealed previously hidden flash es of brilliant orange and blue. Such sudden displays of color may serve to startle a pur suer and slow him down. But Doug wasn't slowed. He leaped in the same direction and almost as fast. After a few more moves by both parties, Doug had the extraordinary frog firmly in hand. "It's an Agalychnis," he told me. And I fancied a re semblance between it and one of the bizarre gold frogs in the San Jose bank (page 132). "Certain other tree frogs lay their eggs in bromeliad wells," Doug said. "The water there is ideal for the tadpoles too." We bagged the specimen, and that night in the roadside hostel where we put up I reexamined it. In the dark the pupils of those huge eyes were fully dilated. Each resembled an eclipse of the sun bordered by a corona of fire-a cat like adaptation for heightened night vision. Back in San Jose we deposited our collec tion in suitable terrariums at the university's biological laboratories for further study. Night after night, often accompanied by students, we set out by jeep for other col lecting sites-hiking up the sides of volcanoes, down into deeply eroded gorges, along twist ing streams. We kept a sharp eye out for bushmasters, rattlers, and other venomous snakes that share such frog habitats. We encountered only one-a terciopelo; the pit viper slithered quickly out of sight. We had sampled Caribbean lowlands, temperate plateaus, and chilly volcanic Bloodred jacket cries "beware!" The Christmas-bulb colors that warn away predators act as a magnet for scientists, who are studying frog neurotoxins in the hope of discovering new medicines for the treatment of heart disease. DENDROBATESPUMILIO,I INCH National Geographic,July 1973 144
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