There are a number of neotropical frog species that only get into the United States in southern Texas. Most of these species, I have seen and recorded multiple times in Texas as well as Mexico and Central America.
But there is one species that has cursed me....the Mexican White-lipped Frog (Leptodactylus fragilis). I have seen and recorded this frog on multiple occasions in Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama. It is not a particularly hard species to find or record (although they do call from burrows in the ground!).
But for some reason, on the dozen or more trips I have made to far south Texas to get a recording of this species, I have failed every time. Other people I know are surprised by this. They aren't rare, and I know the right locations and habitat...so why haven't I found one in Texas?
Well, in May 2026 it rained in the Rio Grande Valley in the White-lipped Frog location I knew. I was not very optimistic, but I made the 4 hour drive down there anyway. When I got to the recording site, I did an afternoon "drive-by" since I know this species will call during the day in the tropics. No luck.
I came back after dark and the frogs were really calling up a storm. I got several south Texas specialities, like Mexican Burrowing Frog (Rhinophrynus dorsalis), Sheep Frog (Hypopachus variolosus) and Giant Toad (Rhinella horribilis).....but I didn't hear any white-lips! So I chalked it up as another fail.
When I got home the next day, I happened to look on iNaturalist to see what another person I know had heard. I knew he was down in the same area (actually as it turns out, on the same road!). I was crushed when I saw, among his recordings, several recordings of Mexican White-lipped Frogs.
So I decided to go back and carefully examine my recordings. I filtered out the noisy Mexican Burrowing Frogs and Western Narrow-mouthed Toads. I stared at each second of the spectrogram....and then I found it. A single call by a Mexican White-lipped Frog....from Texas!! The call was drowned out by the larger and louder species around it, but with a lot of creative filtering and trimming, I finally was able to capture a recognizable few seconds of their sharp upward whistles.
Here's the lousy recording! It is highly filtered and not very long....but it counts!
After finding this one calling, I went back through all my recordings that night and managed to hear a few more among the din produced by the bigger species. I still need to go down there and get a decent recording, but at least for now it is on my Texas recording lifelist after nearly a decade of trying to get it! So that puts me at 39 of the 44 species that are possible in Texas.
I still need:
______________________
© Chris Harrison 2026
No comments:
Post a Comment