why make a frogboys site?

frogeatsmouse1 TRUTH BE TOLD I (Margaret Roach) was happy when the frogboys just sat around as still as Buddhas the last 20 years beside my backyard water gardens, letting me watch and photograph and even sometimes hold them. We all got along fine. Life was simpler then.

And then the frogboys got popular, both with tourists to my garden and with visitors to my garden blog. And then they got uppity (ribbit!).

And then they got agents.

Like all rising stars, they got testy (urp!) and suddenly I found myself taking a meeting with their slippery lawyer.

And then I had to build them a website of their own…or else. Welcome to frogboys.com, the result of that negotiation. There’s peace in the pond again, now that the frogboys have their own domain.

All photos here are by me, Frogboy Mama (including the gross one up top), and copyright Margaret Roach Inc. Don’t even get started violating the rights of these upcoming stars; trust me, it’s not pretty when they are upset. Just look what happened to the mouse that pissed them off. Can you say, tartare?

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

entangled March 5, 2009 at 7:51 am: Cute! But FrogRoll reminds me of lobster rolls and crab rolls for some reason ;-)

The Chorus Frogs just began singing about a week ago in central Virginia. I hear them, but have never seen one. And I’ve tried.

There was a teeny tiny frog hanging around the backyard last summer. I never got a positive ID on it.
susan March 5, 2009 at 9:10 am: I did not know that that the frogboys eat mice, yuck.
50s Pam March 5, 2009 at 4:12 pm: That’s life in the food chain. As they say.
Melinda March 9, 2009 at 5:36 am: So when can we send Frogboy e-cards?
april May 24, 2009 at 6:24 am: They eat mice?! Were they fresh out of flies?

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- why make a frogboys site?
Frog haiku

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
-Matsuo Basho, 1686

The old pond,
A frog jumps in:
Plop!
-Alan Watts, translation

For 31 translations, try here.
Did You Know That Frogs Are…

Cold-blooded;

Ancient (evolving nearly 200 million years ago, they walked among the dinosaurs);

Fish out of water, sort of (they’re the first four-footed ancestors of fish, the earth’s original tetrapods);

The first land animals with vocal chords;

And that it’s not the females but the males who talk a lot (owing to those expandable air sacs at their throats);

Revered in cultures as diverse as India and Peru, Egypt and ancient Greece and Rome;

Of two worlds, creatures of land and water;

Can leap 20 times their body length;

Range in size from ½ inch to a foot-long 7-pounder;

Comprise more than 4,900 species worldwide (not counting many that scientists haven’t discovered yet).

Fertilize their eggs outside the female’s body in most species;

That this happens during a mating embrace called amplexus;

They’re exceptionally vulnerable to climate change, invasive species, pollution and pesticides and a host of other human activities.

Please, won’t you love a frog today?
Which Frog Are You?

Do you ever confuse the inside of your head for the whole wide world of possibility?

Tibetan Buddhist holy man Patrul Rinpoche told the story of an old frog who had lived all his life in a dank well.

One day a frog from the sea paid him a visit.

“Where do you come from?" asked the frog in the well.

“From the great ocean," he replied.

“How big is your ocean?"

“It's gigantic!“

“You mean about a quarter of the size of my well here?”

“Bigger."

“Bigger? You mean half as big?"

“No, even bigger."

“Is it as big as this well?"

“There's no comparison!”

“That's impossible! I've got to see this for myself."

They set off together.

When the frog from the well saw the ocean, it was such a shock that his head just exploded into pieces.

The Staff

The place is wo(manned) by Margaret Roach, Frogboy Mama, and Anastasia Smith, Head Frog Stylist. No experiments or tests were performed on live frogs in the making of this blog.
Field Guide
Frog Facts
Frog Fun
Frog Worship
Frogboys' Friends
Categories
- frog cartoons (13)
- frog humor (19)
- frog news (23)
- frog science (22)
- frog videos (24)
- the frogpond out back (11)
- toad tuesday (3)
Frog Exhibit Reopens

May 30, 2009 - January 3, 2010 'Frogs: A Chorus of Colors' reopens at the American Museum of Natural History (where you'll be able to check out the handsome boy above).