This is the striped phase of the tiny greenhouse frog.
If I concentrate, on almost every warm, humid night, the twitterings and chirpings of greenhouse frogs,
Eleutherodactylus planirostris, can be heard in our anuran friendly Alachua County yard. The calls are high pitched, soft, and more reminiscent of the stridulations of some cricket species than of an amphibian. In other words, it might take a dedicated effort to hear and have the tinkling notes you are hearing register as the vocalizations of a frog.
Apparently the first notice of the greenhouse frog, a West Indian species was in 1875 when it was noted in Miami-Dade County. Since then it has spread pretty much throughout the state and has been heard or found in Alabama, Georgia, southern Mississippi, southeastern Louisiana, and eastern Texas, as well. It has also been found in heated greenhouses in more northerly states.
This little reddish-tan to gray with reddish overtones frog is fully grown at from ¾ to 1 ¼ inches snout-vent length. It occurs in 2 pattern forms, a striped and a mottled.
There being no free-swimming tadpole stage this species does not require water to breed. The 6 to 26 eggs are deposited in moist leaf litter, beneath moist ground debris, in the cups or between the leaves of bromeliads, and other places that offer similar protection from predators and drying. Metamorphosis is rapid, with the tiny froglets hatching when conditions are ideal in as little as 13 days after egg deposition.
This little tiny frog eats the tiniest of insects and is not known to compete seriously with any native species. An interloper though they may be, they are always welcomed when we happen upon them.
A developing greenhouse froglet is visible in the top right egg capsule.
This is the mottled phase of the greenhouse frog.
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