Finding More Frogs! Maybe Northern Leopard Frogs?

Remember back when we caught a frog? How I swore my husband was seeing things when he told me he saw one so next time he mowed he caught one for me to see when I got home? Well, apparently we have a whole family of frogs now! May have to look up more about them because I just do not understand how they are living so close to our house. We have a few ponds in the neighborhood but not in our backyard...more like down the street a few houses. So HOW exactly are these little guys flourishing and reproducing it looks like!

I caught the little guy above right outside our front door!



We've spotted at least three larger guys like the one we caught last year in the backyard and several little guys like the top pic! Too cute!

Ok...did a little research on the Indiana DNR website and really can't tell whether our frogs are Pickerel Frogs or Northern Leopard Frogs. Probably Northern Leopard Frogs - which are a "species of special concern."

Hmm...I think we should get some sort of wildlife protection zone for our backyard for creating an apparently safe haven for these guys. Pretty sure they are feeding off the insane amount of huge scary wolf/grass spiders we have and our tons of grasshoppers!

Makes me wonder, though - is our house sitting on some sort of unstable marsh land or maybe we have an underground creek?? We DO always have really mucky wet areas on one side of the house...the "side of doom" as we've come to call it because nothing...and I mean NOTHING will grow there. If you dig a hole it will fill with rain water and sit like that for DAYS even if the rest of the yard it cracked and dry...hmm?

Here's more info from the DNR website:

Northern Leopard Frog

Description
2-3” (5.1-9cm). Dark spots on back with white margins. Spots mostly larger than eye. Dark spot on snout, no spot on external eardrum. Green, tan, or brown with a white belly. Dorsolateral ridge extends to groin. Slender with a narrow head.

Call Description
Deep rattling snore that lasts 2-3 seconds, followed by a chuckling sound, like a heavy creaking door slowly opening. Also sounds like two balloons being rubbed together. Difficult to distinguish from southern leopard frog unless heard on the same night.

• Call in MP3 format
• Call in WAV format

Indiana Range
Northern, central, and extreme southeastern Indiana. This is a Species of Special Concern.

Diet
Eats terrestrial invertebrates such as insects and insect larvae, spiders, slugs, snails and earthworms. Large adults also eat other frogs.

Habitat
Marshes, bogs, moist fields, lakes, streams, and ponds surrounded by wet meadows.

Breeding Habitat
Marshes, wetlands, fishless ponds, and roadside ditches.

Breeding Season
Mid-March to May

Eggs
Females may deposit 3,000-5,000 eggs in globular clusters. Usually laid in shallow water and attached to submerged vegetation a few inches below the surface of the water. Hatch in 1-2 weeks.