MY FUNNY FROG STORY
My brother and I had a area of woods where most of the area kids rode bikes on dirt trails and built tree forts.
Our fort had been very primitive but hidden well. One year while building our fort I found a tree frog (Copes Gray Treefrog)
We had kept him in a large covered bucket hung in a tree with twigs and a bottom filled with water. The top had hole but not big enough for the frog.
I had dumped insects in as I visited on most days.
One late fall, on a very sunny day, the temperature had hit freezing.
I had remembered about my tree frog in the woods and was told not to go in winter due to being so cold. That snowy weekend I had made a journey to out to the fort by myself. Many trees had fallen from storms that fall and the fort was intact but surrounded by fallen trees. I seen the bucket hanging there but tipped sideways from a stray branch. The lid was gone. I was thinking the frog had escaped and figured it was fine.
I looked inside and seen twigs, ice and a froze frog stretched out as if he were jumping out. That day was sad day. My pet frog dead because I trapped him in a bucket.
Well spring came and things began melting. That fall I left the bucket in the fort and went home. When returning to the fort I found the bucket still there with it full of water, twigs and NO frog.
The frog lived and till high school I did not no why he out lived that frozen winter.
E. Jorgensen
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Did you know?
Gray Treefrogs cope with cold temperatures in an unusual way -- they literally freeze!
Experiments have shown that Gray Treefrogs can survive temperatures as low as -6 C (21 F) for several days, when more than 40% of their body fluids may be completely frozen.
They accomplish this by producing large amounts of glycerol in their blood and body tissues, which acts as a natural "antifreeze" to prevent ice from forming inside their cells.
SOURCE:
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/
http://www.seagrant.wisc.edu/
