Blue Frog ID please (1 Viewer)

[ukswanman]

Can anyone tell me anything about this frog I saw in my hedge on the south coast of France, near Perpignan? The hedge is a mixture of mainly privet and grape vine gone daft. There were no blue flowers anywhere near. The frog was one and a quarter inches from nose to tail and the colour is an accurate rendition of its appearance, honestly. I did see a similar brown frog a few days later on our veranda. When I moved it into the hedge, its colour seemed to change to a greenish brown as I watched it. Can frogs change colour so dramatically? The call was more like a Mallard quack than a croak. Am I going mad? :frog:

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

It is a frog of the Genus Hyla ; they can change colour to a certain extent, and this blue is in the range of colours they can show (seen that before), so what you witnessed is not that unusual.

There would be 2 possible species in that area I think: Hyla arborea and Hyla meridionalis. It´s quite some time since I did determination of those species, so I have some difficulty to remember the differences. i think one difference was that the dark stripe over the eye is less pronounced and less complete in H. meridionalis, so this would be H. arborea-but I am not sure, you should consult some literature.
Hope that helps,
Jörn

 

[samuel walker]

I have seen full sized blue bullfrogs in Ohio The explaination I recieved was that they lack yellow pigment.I do know from a career in printing that blue and yellow dots are used to create green.If the yellow printer on a press goes out you end up with blue grass.Made sense to me.
Sam

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

A lack of yellow pigment in this individual , as Sam proposes , would be another possibility-especially if that one did not change colour to brown or green?

Such mutations also can occur in Hyla frogs

 

[ukswanman]

It never changed colour for about 5 minutes, when it hopped out of sight in the hedge. I saw a brown one change to green (my wife swears it was turning blue) while I observed it after moving it from a wooden veranda to greenery in the hedge, but the blue one showed no sign of turning green while on a green leaf.