It was looking like we were about to lose out on another ribbiting story opportunity. Our staff’s resident wildlife photographer was heartbroken, and we couldn’t find any of the chocolate-covered crickets that were promised at the door.
The Royal Botanical Garden members and press opening evening for their Frogs! winter exhibition was bustling with antsy children and photographers. There were no frogs yet. They were set to arrive that evening all the way from their home at Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland zoo in Allenwood, Pennsylvania. Despite the Royal Botanical Garden’s efforts to contact them ahead of time, border security held up the frogs for several hours. We were told that they wouldn’t be ready to open the exhibit until the next morning.
Just as we we’re about to leave, they began ushering the guests away form the empty exhibits. The frogs were ready to make their entrance.
We should have known that such colourful company would be fashionably late. The frogs arrived in lavish Tupperware, with their exhibit displays ready and warmed so that they could get cozy and comfortable for their three-month stay in Hamilton.
They don’t have personalities quite like people, or like we like to give or pets like dogs and cats, but they definitely have attitude. Whether that’s good or bad depends on the frog.”
Tiffany Faull, Exhibit Caregiver
While this isn’t their first time at the Royal Botanical Gardens, the exhibit hopes to introduce the public to some spectacular amphibians, but also raise awareness about global and local environmental issues that are threatening the homes of these animals.
Here are some of the biggest amphibious celebs to grace to the exhibit, introduced to us by Tiffany Faull, a recent biology graduate who travels with Clyde Peeling’s exhibitions to care for their animals.
“They don’t have personalities quite like people, or like we like to give or pets like dogs and cats, but they definitely have attitude. Whether that’s good or bad depends on the frog.”
The American bullfrog may be one of the more familiar species to a North American audience, and perhaps her comfort in this environment is what produces her free spirit. While we were lucky enough to see her up close and personal before she entered her exhibit, it may not be long before she ventures off to try and explore the RBG.
“She’s an escape artist… She likes to sit and wait and bide her time, and then while you leave enough room to jump out of her exhibit and run down hallways. There are many stories from security guards of watching keepers chase after her.”
Jaba here has a bad boy reputation. African bullfrogs are famous for their size and appetite.… They can hold large creatures into their big mouths with two front odontoid processes (that are not actually teeth contrary popular belief). They are known to eat large bugs, small lizards, birds and even other African bullfrogs, so he travels alone. But this doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a soft side.
“He is actually an amazing dad. If he were to have tadpoles he’s the one takes care of them” explained Faull. “They breed after rainy season in these pools. He will actually dig out channels from pool to pool to save the tadpoles if it starts to get dry.”
There are five different species of poison dart frogs, and the RBG is lucky enough to feature four of them, only excluding the famed golden poison frog, which is currently relaxing back in Reptiland. While these seem like a dangerous creature to handle, the colourful stars of the exhibition aren’t actually poisonous when bred in captivity.
“We don’t actually entirely understand how it works. Or what they are actually eating. They eat a certain bug that eats a certain plant. The plant will create a toxin that will prevent itself from getting eaten. The bug will eat that plant and the frog will eat that bug, and then it will take that toxin and secrete from its skin,” said Faull.
Their exhibit includes several bromeliad flowers, which in the wild, will fill with just enough water after rainfall for the poison dart frog to lay their eggs inside. After four to eight tadpoles hatch in these small pools of water, the frogs will return to these flowers and carry their tadpoles to a larger pool of water.
Like the African bullfrog, the ornate horn frogs have big mouths and even bigger appetites.
They will try to eat anything that moves in front of them, including things that are too big for their bodies, causing them to suffocate.
They may not be too smart, but at least they got the looks to make up for it. Their colourful patterns are used to camouflage when they burrow underground and wait for their food to wander over.
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Though many who know me would be shocked to hear this, I must divulge that for the greater part of my life I was extremely shy. Most of my habits from these years have dissolved and disappeared, but there remain a few traces. For one, I loathe speaking to sales staff - I have saved many dollars walking out of stores in order to avoid this interaction. For another, I find it difficult to confront others when I feel uncomfortable for unusual reasons.
This can range from things like sitting at a circular table, where I’d really rather your knee didn’t bump into mine under the table, that’s why I’m getting up for water so often, to things like my friends teasing me about my private life, especially the infamous “love life”, which I would really rather you never bring up. Ever.
Both of those things happen to many people on a daily basis, and objectively, there is nothing really wrong with either of them. The latter can be a way of expressing interest in someone’s life and well-being. The former is a popular eating arrangement. That’s fine. That’s cool. This article isn’t about forbidding friendly chitchat or abolishing circular tables (check back next week).
I’m pretty good at dealing with this somewhat odd, little stuff in my life. I can keep my knees glued together at dinner parties even if it means sore thighs and shaky calves for a few hours the next day. That’s a problem I can solve.
What I can’t solve is that feeling of unease that sits in my stomach the second a friend’s mouth shapes any question or remark regarding my romantic involvements. But it doesn’t really seem fair to tell my friends not to talk to me about that part of my life. They like me (or so they say), and as a result care about how I’m doing. They don’t mean to pry, it’s often just a topic of conversation.
I was lamenting this issue with a good friend of mine, beleaguered by a particularly uncomfortable comment made by someone close to me. As she is wont to do, my friend made an excellent point, illustrated by the following analogy:
“Sam, some people are afraid of frogs. There is no reason for this, as many and most frogs are harmless, but if someone told you, “Yeah, no, please don’t tell me stories about the giant frogs at your cottage,” would you laugh at them or would you respect their wishes?”
Pretty obviously, I would do my best to respect their wishes. I don’t want to make this hypothetical person uncomfortable by haunting them with amphibious imagery. Their request certainly isn’t hurting me, so it’s not really a question of fairness at all. It’s a question of me respecting this person’s boundaries. Their boundaries aren’t stepping all over mine, so I am going to do my best to make sure I’m not stepping all over theirs.
That is totally reasonable and part of being a decent human being. Perhaps I was so used to being able to facilitate my own solutions that anything involving changing the actions of others, even in a totally harmless way, seemed unfair. But my boundaries, so long as they don’t harm others, are just as worth respecting as other people’s.
This seems pretty obvious now, but I guess even my hindsight needs glasses sometimes.
It doesn’t matter if you understand why someone is uncomfortable hearing about frogs, maybe they themselves don’t even understand why they are, it’s just important you understand that they are.
Don’t make fun of people’s froggy fears. We’ve all got some.
