Home Econets Spotlight species Amphibians Frogs

Meet the Frogs

What could be more magical than metamorphosis? Frogs begin life as a clump of eggs called frogspawn. Then, like their fellow amphibians, newts and toads, they transition through a free-swimming larval stage into an adult form that spends most of the year out of the water, often hundreds of metres from the pond they were spawned in. This, and their sensitive skin, make frogs an important indicator of the environmental health of the area. If you can sustain a frog population, you’ll be doing wonderful things for so much more wildlife too.

What they need

Ask anyone what frogs need and you can bet the first thing they’ll say is ‘ponds’. Whilst true for breeding and keeping moist and cool on hot days, frogs, toads and newts actually spend the vast majority of their lives hunting for bugs in shady corners on dry land
They keep hydrated partly by absorbing water through their skin, which means they need cool, moist hideaways they can move between as they hunt for food or hide from predators, and water they can chill out in on hot, dry days
Their sensitive, absorbent skin also means they’re extremely vulnerable to pollution, with chemical pesticides also harmful because they kill off their bug prey and slowly poison the frogs themselves too
Last but not least, connections: urban amphibian populations may be suffering in part because they are isolated, disconnected from other local populations by fences, roads, chemical pollution and lack of habitat.

What you can do to help

Ponds for breeding are your biggest gift to frogs, and could provide a vital stepping stone that allows gene flow by connecting previously disconnected populations. Make sure it’s got a shallow beach side to allow safe entry and exit for frogs and other wildlife, and dig a bigger and deeper pond if you want to help toads too. Smaller water features like mini-ponds will also provide vital cooling on hot days if at ground level and higher up will replenish thirsty bugs that could later become tasty snacks for our amphibian friends.
If it’s good for invertebrates, it’s good for frogs and co. Compost heaps, log piles, dead hedges, leaf mould cages, long grass and meadow patches, cool green walls and rockeries – these can shelter frogs and nurture the mini beasts they feast on.
Make gaps in fences for frogs to move around and avoid using pesticides, fertilisers, and other chemicals that can contaminate waterways and harm frog populations.

Fascinating facts

Frogs face terrible odds in the wild. You might be impressed by how many hundreds of eggs you can see in those delightful clumps of frogspawn but survival rates to maturity can be as low as one percent
Breeding adults tend to return to their ancestral pond, with toads being particularly set on spawning where they spent their tadpole-hood. Desperate females who discover their pond has disappeared have been known to spawn in any water they can find, including buckets and puddles
According to the Wildlife Trusts, Britain lost more than half its ponds in the 20th Century, with one in five of those remaining being in poor condition. But you can be a part of turning that around!