Malformed Frogs: The Collapse of Aquatic Ecosystems

Plates

plate 1. (A) Left and (B) right side views of an axanthic northern leopard frog collected along the shore of Sunken Lake in Dickinson County, Iowa, in 2003. Photo by Daniel Fogell; used with permission. A B plate 2. A green kandyohi northern leopard frog morph from western Minnesota. Photo by Michael Redmer©/www.mikeredmer.com. plate 3. (A) A brown burnsi morph northern leopard frog from northwestern Iowa. Note the lack of dorsal spotting. Northern leopard frogs may be either brown or green, and in the Upper Midwest, brown and green animals occur in about a 50:50 ratio. (B) A green burnsi morph northern leopard frog (or is it?—note the two elongate dorsal spots) from northwestern Iowa. This animal teaches a lesson: when working with amphibians we must be willing to consider variants that defy convenient characterization. Photos by the author. A B plate 4. Rana pipiens. 50 mm SUL. Collected on 24 September 1997 at the SUN site in Ottertail County by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency field biologists. Note on the left thigh, proximal to the site where the limb segments are missing, the normal barred pattern along the dorsal hind limb (see right side of animal) is disrupted. Spotting is smaller and oriented along the long axis of the limb. Failed predation cannot produce this pigment pattern. Animals from this site are also shown in Figures 2.16 and 2.54. ...