All About Tree Frogs

“True frogs,” or Ranids, spend almost their whole life in water.  Tree frogs, or Hylids, live among grass and bushes often rather far from water.

Tree frogs can soak up the night dew, or dig holes in the ground and lie in the damp soil.  A number of arboreal tree frogs or tree-dwellers, make use of small pools of water which collect between the leaves of plants, in tree holes or bamboo stems.  Plants like tree ferns and certain palms collect water in their leaf-axils and provide homes and hiding places for small tree frogs.

You can easily recognize a tree frog by its toes, which have round pads on the ends which work like suction cups for climbing, permitting them to cling even to smooth, slippery surfaces.  They can even creep right up a glass wall.

Tree frogs are tiny, some less than an inch long.  Most grow no bigger than two inches long.  Small as they are, they are talented acrobats.  Their long slender legs give them the power for graceful leaps.  The short front legs help break the tree frog’s fall when it lands.  Their hind legs become very strong and grow twice as long as their whole bodies.  This makes them wonderful jumpers.  Some tree frogs can jump 40x their own length.  A sudden leap is their last and quickest escape from danger.

Many of them are excellent vocalists, known for their loud, clear, musical calls and the enthusiasm with which they perform their concerts.

Tree frogs are champion color-change artists.  They are especially good at hiding because they can change their skin colors to blend into the background around them.  They have special pigment cells in their skin called “chromatophores” that allow them to do this.

How does a frog know when its time to change color?  When a tree frog sees that the colors around it have changed it will change its skin color to match its surroundings.  Sometimes they will change color simply because the texture of the surface they are resting on feels rough or smooth.  A frog may also change its color if it is afraid or excited, or when the temperature or humidity around it changes. Light sensors in the skin also help a frog know when its time for a color change.

Tree frogs are nocturnal, meaning they stay hidden by day and are active at night.   They tend to live in a well-defined territory, foraging over a limited area at night and returning to a known hiding place by morning.  These hiding places consist of nooks and crannies in trees, beneath rocks and amongst debris.  The area over which a frog chooses for his “home range” means you can reliably find him there day after day, sometimes year after year.

Tree frogs are found in practically every part of the world, ranging from tropical jungles to the Canadian woods, and from sea level up to 15,000 feet.