Frog Trap

I love toads and frogs. The sunken basement window of my office is basically a frog trap. I used to hate it when frogs and toads got in there, but now I like it. Yes, it's annoying when they constantly jump against the window at night while I'm trying to look at porn...I mean, do important online research, but I'm always fascinated by the different types of toads and frogs I find the next day.

I have a few field guides to help me identify them, and there's plenty of online resources, but the odd thing is that I've been finding things that aren't supposed to be in this county. This week I've found two Eastern Spadefood toads. Look at the map of where they're supposed to be in Virginia. Not only are they not supposed to be in Pittsylvania County, they're not supposed to be in any of the counties that border Pittsylvania County either. (Pittsylvania County's on the bottom of the state about halfway across. Here's a Virginia map with all the names on it.) But yet I've found two of them, which makes me think they're probably all over the state, but no one's bothered to find them and identify them. What else am I going to find?

Of course I took some photos of the Spadefoot toads: a side view of number one, a front view of number one, a side view of number two, and a front view of number two. (These are links to my Textamerica moblog, which seems to load very, very slowly at times. And sometimes not at all. Sorry.)

Exciting, no? No.