Frog sound is called: Why do frogs call? – The Australian Museum Blog

Why do frogs call? – The Australian Museum Blog

• Author(s)

  Dr Jodi Rowley

• Category

  Science

• Published

  30 October 2017

• Read time

  2 minutes

We all know that frogs croak (or ribbit, chirp or hoot), but why? What drives frogs to call throughout the night from your backyard pond or local creek? The biggest clue is that in almost all frog species, only males call. In fact, that noise you hear in your backyard pond, local creek or dam is a sweet serenade- male frogs calling to attract female frogs. Because every species has a different sounding call, you can identify frog species just by listening.

Graceful Tree Frog (Litoria gracilenta), northern NSW. This calling male has his vocal sac fully extended.
Image: Jodi Rowley
© Australian Museum

The sound of frogs calling is familiar to most of us, and the typical calls that we hear frogs make are known as advertisement calls- it’s male frogs advertising themselves as potential partners, hoping that female frogs will like their song and come their way. Because the aim of the encounter is to breed, male frogs typically call in or near water (ponds, dams, streams and wetlands), where eggs are most often laid and tadpoles develop. Some frogs call in the water, some on nearby rocks or on the bank, and others in trees or on the ground nearby.

Different frog species breed in different kinds of water-bodies, so, not surprisingly, different frog species call from different kinds of water-bodies. The bright-yellow males of Wilcox’s Frog (Litoria wilcoxii), calls from near rocky streams. The Orange-thighed Tree Frog (Litoria xathomera) typically calls from trees around temporary ponds, and the Common Eastern Froglet (Crinia signifera) calls in shallow swamps, flooded glassland and puddles.

Male frogs want to make sure they attract females of their own species (otherwise it’s a waste of their effort!), so each frog species in an area has a different sounding call. From high-pitched whirring, to a deep “bonk”, or an insect-like chirp, male frogs sing to attract their own kind. Female frogs even have ears tuned into the specific call of their own species, so that they can locate a male of their own species in a chorus of multiple, noisy males.

Knowing what each frog species sounds is also a great way for us humans to identify our local frogs, without having to disturb them. Once you learn what each local frog species sounds like, you can survey for frogs just by listening!

Most frog species are nocturnal and are therefore more active, and vocal, after dusk. So night time is the best time to hear frogs calling. Given their reliance on water for breeding, it’s not suprising that frogs tend to call more after rain. Some frog species breed almost all year (“prolonged breeders”), others will only breed (and therefore call) a few nights a year (“explosive breeders”). Timing is everything if you want to hear some of the more fussy frogs!

While the best time to hear frogs is typically the warmer months, as most frog species choose to breed in the spring and summer, some frog species prefer the cooler months. Others, such as the desert-dwelling Water-holding Frog (Cyclorana platycephala), will just call anytime that it rains enough.

So, that frog calling from your backyard pond is an amorous male, crooning to attract the female frog of his dreams. Lucky for us, frog calls also double as a sneaky way to identify what species of frog are living near you.

Help us save Australia’s frogs! Download Frog ID. 

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What Sounds do Frogs Make?

Frogs make a variety of sounds from the common “ribbit ribbit” to the more sophisticated croak, chirp, or hoot. But the sound a frog makes truly depends on a variety of factors.

As a general rule, the sound a frog makes depends on the species, their intent (mating, territorial defense), and the language that the human interpreting the sound speaks. English speakers think frogs make a “Ribit Ribit” sound whereas French speakers hear “Croac Croac.”

Let’s have a look at each of these factors in more detail.

Frog Sounds Depend on Species

Each frog species has its own sounds and calls.

This allows male frogs to attract female frogs of the same species.

Frogs use sounds and silence to attract and warn other frogs.

They may make a long trill or small chirping with intermittent pauses.

For example, male Spring Peeper make peeping and chirping sounds that they sing in chorus which can be heard up to 1km away from their location in the early Spring.

These frogs are very small but can make loud, high pitched chirps to attract females of the same species during mating season.

Green Frog Sound

Green Frogs sound like a banjo being strung

Spring Peeper Sound

Spring Peeper make chirp-like peeping sounds

Above you can listen to what Spring Peeper sound like, and see what they look like up close in the video below where I go on an adventure to find them.

Even though they are loud and right next to me, they are hard to spot!

But it is rewarding once you finally find one.

Wood Frog Sound

Wood frogs sound like ducks quacking

American Toad Sound

American Toads make a very long trill

In the recording above you can hear the Wood Frog mating call, which sounds like ducks quacking or saying “Hourah, Hourah!”

Spring Peeper and Wood Frogs are generally the first frogs that call during early Spring in the North-Eastern United States, and in Eastern Canada.

Spring Peeper Frog Call

Watch this video on YouTube

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Frog Sounds in Words

If there is a frog making calls in your backyard and you want to know what it is, this table may be able to help you.

Here are common sounds frogs make, and what the call may sound like to us (English speakers in North America, see further down the article for other languages and locations).

Spring Peeper are present in Eastern Canada and the United States and sound like crickets in the spring.

Green Frogs and Wood Frogs also call during the Spring and sound like ducks quacking.

If you hear a frog that sounds like a sheep or lamb bleating, it may be a Eastern Narrow-Mouthed Toad.

Pickerel Frogs sound like a creaking door opening. And American Bullfrogs sound like horns calling, notably during the Spring and into Summer.

If you would like to identify a frog sound in your area, start by looking for indicators that frogs are present near a water source like a pond, lake, stream, or river.

Also, consider the time of year since frogs actively call during mating season. Find out which species are present in your area and match what you hear with the species.

Frog Sounds Depend on Intent

Frogs can trill, chirp, scream, bark, grunt, peep, beep, cluck, croak, quack, whistle, bellow, and hoot. But their choice of sound depends on their intent.

Frogs make different sounds for different reasons, for example, to attract a mate, defend their territory, or fend off a predator.

Some Frog Sounds Can Be Heard Up To 1.6km (1 Mile) From The Frog

Frogs have a unique mating call to attract frogs of their own species.

Male frogs find the perfect place to reproduce and then call female frogs to them during mating season.

In North America, Spring Peepers, for example, will find small ponds and make high-pitched quaking sounds to call mates. 

Frogs have unique calls to defend their territory. Both male and female frogs will call, warn or scream to defend their territory from other frogs or predators.

Most frogs make sounds at night to avoid attracting predators that are active during the day.

A tiny angry squeaking Frog 🐸 | Super Cute Animals – BBC

Watch this video on YouTube

Generally, frogs scream to startle or scare predators. Frogs may also release distress, warning, mating, territorial and rain calls that could sound like screaming. Screaming generally is one of the many defence mechanisms a frog may use to protect itself.

Some frogs scream when they are afraid or if a predator gets too close.

A frog scream may sound funny (watch the video above) but it can be an effective way for them to surprise a predator and deter it from attacking (CTNF). 

The Desert Rain Frog will puff up like a little balloon and scream to scare its enemies and defend itself.

It is a tiny frog and its scream sounds more like a squeak from a dog’s toy, but if they are still here today and using this technique to scare predators, it must mean it works!

Click here to read 8 Reasons Why Frogs Scream on our blog

Frog Sound Name Depend on Language

The name of the sound a frog makes depends on linguistic interpretation. If you speak English, then you may believe that frogs “Ribit Ribit”, but French speakers believe frogs makes a “Croac Croac” sound, and Spanish speakers say frogs make a “Croá, Croá” sound.

Here are some other sounds frogs make depending on the language you speak:

It is important to keep in mind that how the human interprets the sound a frog makes is also a factor that comes into play when imitating frog sounds.

Also, some languages have more precise verbs and adjectives to describe such sounds compared to others.

More About Frog Sounds

Frog calls depend on the frog’s intent and how us humans interpret their sounds. Learn more about frog sounds in the guides on our blog below!

• 8 Reasons Why Frogs Scream
• Why do Frogs Croak at Night?
• 9 Things You Can Do About Loud Frogs at Night
• 8 Frog Calls, Screams & Their Meanings
• What Do Frogs Do At Night?
• How do Frogs Defend Themselves?

What Sounds do Toads Make? As a general role, toads make croaking, quacking or chirping sounds depending on their intent including mating or territorial defence. Each toad species has unique calls and sounds.

How Do Frogs Make Sounds? Depending on the species, frogs use their vocal sacs to make sounds by closing their nostrils and pushing air into their lungs and vocal sac using it as a resonating chamber. Only male frogs can make sounds but some female species were found to do so as well.

Do All Frogs Sound The Same? All frogs do not sound the same since each species has its own unique calls. Male frogs make unique calls using their vocal sacs to attract female mates, to defend their territories, or fend off predators.

Can Humans Hear All Frog Sounds? Humans cannot hear all sounds frogs make as scientists found a frog species that can communicate using purely ultrasonic calls, whose frequencies are too high to be heard by humans. 

Are Frogs Noisy? Frogs can be noisy in the wild especially around mating season. If there are tens to hundreds of frogs competing to attract females, they may increase the volume of their mating calls to drown out other males.

How do You Identify a Frog Sound? To identify a frog sound, start by looking for indicators that frogs are present in the area with a water source, and consider the time of year since frogs actively call during mating season. Find out which species are present in your area and match their mating calls.

Why do Frogs Scream? Some frogs scream when they are afraid, feel like they are in danger, to defend their territory, or if a predator gets too close. A frog scream may sound funny but it can be an effective way for them to surprise a predator and deter it from attacking. 

What Words Can Describe Frog Sounds? Words to describe frog sounds include trill, chirp, scream, bark, grunt, peep, beep, cluck, croak, quack, whistle, bellow, and hoot. The sound a frog makes depends on their intent.

Sources

Music of Nature: Calls of Frogs and Toads

Pure Ultrasonic Communication: PLOS Journals

14 Fun Facts About Frogs: A 15-Minute Book: Educational Version

Guess the frog from three notes

We listen to the croaking of Australian frogs to help herpetologists better understand the habits of amphibians.

Hello, my name is Vlad Tsoi. I work for the People of Science project, where we tell how a person without special skills can help researchers from all over the world. In other words, try yourself as a scientific volunteer.

One of the most popular portals for science volunteers is called Zooniverse. This resource contains dozens of projects that need the help of volunteers. For example, my colleague Masha Osetrova and I have already talked about how people watch the life of chimpanzees in Chimp&See
or help with the development of rover artificial intelligence in AI4Mars. Most often, volunteers classify pictures or short videos on the portal. But sometimes there are curious exceptions – like, for example, FrogSong, where the user listens to the croaking of Australian frogs.
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Photo: Rishab Pillai, Zooniverse.

View full size

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About project

The FrogSong project was launched in January 2021 by Australian herpetologists from James Cook University (James Cook University) and Monash University (Monash University) . Investigating frog “songs”, scientists want to better understand the habits of amphibians – when they croak in chorus, and when they are alone; what circumstances and how influence what sounds the frog makes; how these animals adapt to the changing environment.
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The scientists took data for their project from the Australian Acoustic Observatory, an organization whose specialists record the sounds of nature across the continent.

Fig.: Australian Acoustic Observatory

Herpetologists cannot listen to these many hours of recordings on their own – a small scientific group would spend years, if not decades, on this. But a team of several thousand volunteers will cope with the audio files in a few months. The recordings processed by volunteers will help scientists create a computer model that will be able to independently recognize different types of frogs by sound.
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Listening to the croak

Like other projects on Zooniverse, FrogSong does not have an application – all work takes place in the browser of your device. To make it more convenient to classify the recordings, it is better to put on headphones: without them, you can listen to the croaking of amphibians against the background of the wind, the rustling of leaves and the singing of birds.

When I participated in FrogSong, I had to identify five types of frogs by ear. However, the database that volunteers work with is constantly updated. It is likely that you will come across completely different species.
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Project participants receive a one-second recording with a spectrogram, on which you can see the frequency of the sound:

Fig.: FrogSong Zooniverse .

According to this short fragment, the volunteer needs to determine whether the frog of interest to herpetologists is heard here. Don’t worry: you don’t need to memorize the voices of all the amphibians. In the right corner of the screen, you will always be accompanied by a guide, which contains the croaks of all the frogs that you can hear.
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Illustration: Zooniverse.

Having familiarized myself with the determinant and instructions, I proceed to the classifications. The first one I came across was the desert tree frog (Litoria rubella) .

Desert tree frog (Litoria rubella). Photo: dhfischer, iNaturalist .

These amphibians are found throughout Australia – mainly in the north and northeast of the continent. Small (from 2 to 4 cm in length), with a modest grayish and brown color, they seem to be quiet. However, in reality, the desert tree frog makes (hereinafter I will leave links to audio files with croaking – author’s note) very unpleasant sounds – something between metal scraping on glass and the cry of a child who hurt his knee:
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Spectrogram of a tree frog “song” fragment. Fig.: Zooniverse .

Almost going crazy with these “songs”, I decided to listen to someone else’s voice. The choice fell on the striped rocket frog (Litoria nasuta) . She chose the northern and western parts of the continent for life. Although populations of these amphibians can be found in the east near Sydney. It is no coincidence that the rocket frog got its name: the elongated shape of its body really resembles an aircraft.
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Striped Rocket Frog (Litoria nasuta). F from: Edward Bell, iNaturalist .

She sounds like she is laughing maliciously or trying to quack like a duck. Here on this recording, the croaking of a rocket frog can be heard four times (try to ignore the noisy chirping of insects):

nine0021 Spectrogram of the singing of a striped rocket frog. Fig.: Zooniverse .

For some reason, the sounds of this amphibian were quite rare for me in FrogSong. For several evenings I heard her croaking only three or four times. On the other hand, the “singing” of the green tree frog (Ranoidea caerulea) sounded almost constantly.

Green tree frog (Ranoidea caerulea). Photo: Amaël Borzée, iNaturalist.

She lives in the north and northeast of Australia – most often amateur naturalists noticed her in the rainforests off the east coast. This is one of the largest Australian frogs – it can reach 10-11 centimeters in length. But it is easy to identify it even by ear: the amphibian has a prominent low croak:

Spectrogram of the croaking of a green tree frog. Fig.: FrogSong Zooniverse .

Other large amphibians also live in Australia – for example, the New Holland frog (Cyclorana novaehollandiae) , which grows up to 10 cm in length. This species mainly inhabits the northeastern Australian state of Queensland.

New Holland frog (Cyclorana novaehollandiae). Photo: Daniel, iNaturalist .
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During dry periods, New Holland frogs burrow underground and become active after heavy rains. They make low and frequent sounds that are a bit like goose cackle:

Spectrogram of New Holland frog singing. Illustration: FrogSong Zooniverse .

In the same Queensland, there is another amphibian that leads a similar lifestyle – this is a decorated burrowing frog (Platyplectrum ornatum) :

Decorated Burrowing Frog (Platyplectrum ornatum). from: Amaël Borzée, iNaturalist .

Its name speaks for itself – the amphibian really often burrows into the soil, escaping from the heat. And her skin is indeed decorated with a cunning mottled pattern. But, in my opinion, the most remarkable thing about this frog is its croaking, which is similar to hiccups:
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Spectrogram of the singing of a decorated burrowing frog. Illustration: FrogSong Zooniverse .

Sometimes on FrogSong I came across very melodic compositions. Here, for example, is a duet of two frogs: an elegant burrowing frog (its croaking is marked in green on the spectrogram) and a New Holland frog (yellow).

Fig.: FrogSong Zooniverse .

There are no frogs on many recordings at all. But there are other curious sounds. For example, it sounds like
Twitter of Australian birds (which ones – I don’t know):

Fig.: FrogSong Zooniverse .

And sometimes a FrogSong volunteer seems to get to a real concert, where they simultaneously perform
Australian birds, frogs and insects. Alas, the voices of the singers sound discordant and the result is a cacophony:
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Fig.: FrogSong Zooniverse .

Results

Now almost 1600 volunteers participate in FrogSong – in three months we managed to make 42,000 classifications. There is a lot of work ahead: there are still almost 100,000 unlistened recordings in the archives of the project. More than half of the volunteers managed to analyze only the dataset with the croaking of the desert tree frog. However, the dynamics are quite good – every day volunteers make several thousand classifications. At this rate, in a few years, herpetologists will indeed be able to create artificial intelligence that recognizes frogs by their voices.
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Perhaps FrogSong is the perfect project for sleep – in a good way. That is, it is not boring, but very soothing. The sounds of nature: the croaking of frogs, the singing of birds, the sound of rain and the howling of the wind, lull the user to sleep. Therefore, it was difficult for me personally to spend more than 30 minutes in it: I constantly nodded my nose. So this project, in my opinion, will be of great interest to those who simultaneously experience problems with falling asleep and are not indifferent to biology research.

How do frogs croak?. Everything about everything. Volume 4

How do frogs croak?

If you have ever lived near a pond, you must have often been surprised by frog concerts. The sounds they make at night are loud enough to keep you awake! Female frogs can make some sounds if they are injured in any way, and the well-known croaking that we hear at night is made only by males. The main purpose of these guttural songs is to attract the attention of females. But they don’t limit their croaking to just the mating season. Their voices can be heard long after the end of this period. nine0003

How does a frog make croaking sounds? She (or rather, he) inhales air, closes her nostrils and mouth and drives the air back and forth between her mouth and lungs. This sound is made when air passes through the vocal cords and causes them to tremble. Many species of frogs have sac-like resonators that are connected to the mouth. When the frog starts its song, the resonators fill with air and swell. These swelling pouches are what give the croak its distinctive sound. nine0003

By the way, the voice of the American bullfrog sometimes carries a mile around and more! Although the adult frog has lungs, it breathes with them in a completely different way than we do. She draws air into her mouth through her nostrils while lowering her throat. The nostrils then close and the frog raises its throat again, thus pushing the air further into the lungs.

Did you know that the frog uses its eyes to swallow food? As you know, frogs catch their prey with a sticky tongue. When an insect sticks to the tongue, they pull it into their mouth. The frog’s large, bulging eyes are separated from the oral cavity only by thin skin. When they close, they protrude inward. That is, the frog closes its eyes when an insect enters its mouth, and the internal bulges help push the food down the throat! Frogs are very useful to humans because they eat insects and reduce their number. nine0003

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frogs
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