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By Marshall Jones
Special to the Rappahannock News
Fossils tell us that amphibians were the first animals with backbones to emerge from the primeval swamps and venture on to the lapd, nearly 400 million years ago. At the start, they were just unusual fish with muscular fins, wriggling out on mud banks to feed on worms and insects. Later, those fins gave rise to bony legs, allowing them to crawl from one pond to another. Some ultimately became fierce predators, growing up to six feet long. Others remained relatively small and gave rise to
salamanders antfitewts.
one group of amphibians develin
a different way, their hind legs
raring magnificent * jumping appendages. Thesafirst frogs were able to search for food at the edge of the pond, but then hop quickly back into the water at the first sign of danger... Over time, thef ventured farther into adjacent grassy or forested habitats, relying on their legs to ^ leap their way to saf&y ^ Like their salamander relatives, these airly frogs and toads still depended on their original aquatic habitats to breed. How did they find each other at the right season of the year? That problem was solved by another amazing advance — the aMhty of males to vibrate the skin of their throats and make sounds, calling their lady loves, to the water. Long before the first bird, it was frogB and toads which filled the air with their romantic calls.
yser Hollow, the b^qr_
vote# of the wood frog is the harbin•
of spring. With the first warm Spells in February, we scrutinize every thaw of the small pond beside our house, at once eager to see them and yet also afraid that theyll emerge too early.
But even if an Alberta clipper brings us a late snowstorm and*a hard freeze, the “wood frogB are well prepared. They can survive being frozen solid, as Sara and Jim Lawrey documented in their RappNature column in this newspaper in March, 2005. ^.Their natural antifreeze mechanisms min' inrize damage from the jfigged edges of jpe crystals which qtMgse frostbite within the
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