A Field Study of the Kansas Ant-Eating Frog, Gastrophryne olivacea — John Shaqi
A Field Study of the Kansas Ant-Eating Frog, Gastrophryne olivaceaFitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Science
A Field Study of the Kansas Ant-Eating Frog, Gastrophryne olivacea
Fitch, Henry S. (Henry Sheldon)
Frogs
HABITAT
In the northeastern part of Kansas at least, rocky slopes in open woods
seem to provide optimum habitat conditions. This type of habitat has
been described by several earlier workers in this same area, Dice (1923:
46), Smith (1934: 503) and Freiburg (1951: 375). Smith (1950: 113)
stated that in Kansas this frog is found in wooded areas, and that rocks
are the usual cover, but he mentioned that outside of Kansas it is often
found in mesquite flats that are devoid of rocks. Freiburg's field work
was done almost entirely on the Reservation and was concentrated in
"Skink Woods" and vicinity, where much of my own field work, both before
and afterward, was concentrated. On the Reservation and in nearby
counties of Kansas, the habitat preferences of the ant-eating frog and
the five-lined skink largely coincide. In an account of the five-lined
skink on the Reservation, I have described several study areas in some
detail (Fitch, 1954: 37-41). It was on these same study areas (Quarry,
Skink Woods, Rat Woods) that most of the frogs were obtained.
Although _G. olivacea_ thrives in an open-woodland habitat in this part
of its range, it seems to be essentially a grassland species, and it
occurs throughout approximately the southern half of the Great Plains
region. Bragg (1943: 76) emphasized that in Oklahoma it is widely
distributed over the state, occupying a variety of habitats, with little
ecological restriction. Bragg noted, however, that the species is
rarely, if ever, found on extensive river flood plains. On various
occasions I have heard _Gastrophryne_ choruses in a slough two miles
south of the Reservation. This slough is in the Kaw River flood plain
and is two miles from the bluffs where the habitat of rocky wooded
slopes begins that has been considered typical of the species in
northeastern Kansas. It seems that the frogs using this slough are not
drawn from the populations living on the bluffs as Mud Creek, a Kaw
River tributary, intervenes. The creek channel at times of heavy
rainfall, carries a torrent of swirling water which might present a
barrier to migrating frogs as they are not strong swimmers. The frogs
could easily find suitable breeding places much nearer to the bluffs.
Those using the slough are almost certainly permanent inhabitants of the
river flood plain. The area in the neighborhood of the slough, where the
frogs probably live, include fields of alfalfa and other cultivated
crops, weedy fallow fields, and the marshy margins of the slough. In
these situations burrows of rodents, notably those of the pocket gopher
(_Geomys bursarius_), would provide subterranean shelter for the frogs,
which are not efficient diggers.
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