Frogs are often very elusive animals, difficult to find outside the breeding season. This is the rule for the Parsley Frog (Pelodytes punctatus), a small species of frog native of Western Europe. Its range is slowly decreasing for habitat pollution and for the negative interaction with invasive species like the Balkan water frog (Pelophylax kurtmuelleri and ridibunda).
Even the global warming could be negative for this species. P. punctatus often breeds in temporary ponds where water is shallow and prolonged droughts could cause the complete death of tadpoles.
The Parsley frog is a quite primitive species, with cat-eyed pupils and lumbar amplexus while breeding. It prefers open dry or damp stony areas like drystone wall and other rocky outcrops with small shallow temporary ponds. Outside the breeding season it’s almost impossible to find a specimen. But this species have two breeding season, in Spring and Autumn. Then the shyness disappears and males congregate to the ponds during heavy rains to call for females.
The mating lasts a few hours, during which one or more egg-masses are attached to submerged branches. The tadpoles will emerge in a few days and will grow fast during the Spring, metamorphosing at the beginning of Summer. For those tadpoles born in Autumn there’s a different story. They will remain in the water until the next Spring, becoming very large and metamorphosing as “giant-sized” froglets.
This frog is one of those most people is not aware of, but they’re an important fragment of biodiversity, worth to defend against extinction. They’re a part of Europe, a part of our own nature as they cannot be found anywhere in the world. Their disappearing would be another great loss for us and our children.
This is a video of newly hatched tadpoles, still attached to their egg-masses. Some of the eggs did not develop and were attacked by bacteria and funguses.
And this video shows a mating group of a some male attached to a single female. Finally, only one male will remain to breed.
Many thanks to Claudio Pia for the help in the making of these pictures.
