Balcones Barking FrogCraugastor augusti latrans

Balcones Barking Frog (Craugastor augusti latrans)

The Balcones Barking Frog (Craugastor augusti latrans) is a poorly known resident of the rocky canyons of the Texas Hill Country and western Texas.  They are usually only active after heavy rains.

As the name implies, these large frogs produce a call reminiscent of a barking dog.  Their call has an amazing ability to echo through the canyons of this area making the individual frogs difficult to find.  They will also call from rock crevices and caves making them even harder to locate.

These two Barking Frogs were calling from a narrow canyon just off a quiet road south of Kerrville, Texas after some of the season's first rain.  I was standing around 50 feet from the frogs.

Here is the spectrogram for a couple of those calls.

In the following recording, a different Barking Frog was recorded from further away (~500 feet) and you can hear how much more "dog-like" the call sounds from the distance.

© Chris Harrison 2013