Bronze Frog

If you spend any time near the water features of MOSI, and if you look very closely, then you are likely to see some Bronze Frogs (Rana clamitans) hanging out. With their bronze and green coloration, these frogs can be very challenging to spot, but once you see one and attune your eyes to their color and shape you will start to notice lots more of them.

This species is also known as the Banjo Frog, because of their distinctive "blonk-blonk" banjo picking-like sound. Bronze frogs dine upon snails, worms, crayfish, insects, small fish and even other small frogs. The tadpoles of the Bronze Frog can take up to a year before growing into adult frogs.

What's in a name:

The genus Rana contains over 100 species of true frogs. The genus was named by Carl Linnaeus using the Latin word for frog: Rana 

The specific epithet clamitans come from the Latin word for loud and clamoring. These frogs can be quite noisy in groups with their banjo plucking, sharp alarm calls and attack hisses.

So, basically, the name of this frog in Latin is just "noisy frog". Not much of a story there to tell, but we can at least back up the noisy part.

Bronze Frog being a typical frog and chilling on a lily pad.