The frog says, times fun when you’re having flies!

~David Bankson

Earlier in the week I was walking around the yard doing a little filming to help with a project on the importance of native plants (see Hometown Habitat). I was using the 500mm telephoto and a 1.4 teleconverter in hopes of getting some birds, but I soon sat near the garden pool and grabbed a few frames of the not-so-active Green Frogs in residence.

Green Frog at edge of pool (click photos to enlarge)

Green Frog doing what frogs do

I wanted to get a few images of the frogs croaking, but they clammed up as I approached. With that lens set up I was able to stay some distance from them so I was hoping they would resume their discussions, but they outlasted me. I grabbed a few stills, nothing special, and went inside. As I was reviewing images that evening, I was going through and dumping most of the frog shots when I noticed something. I usually enlarge images as I process them, and I noticed something on one of the frogs….a tiny red dot.

I noticed a tiny red spot on the frog’s head as I was reviewing the images

I zoomed in for a closer look. It was an insect, a blood-sucking insect!

Green Frog with a pair of biting midges on its head

I looked at the image of another frog, and this one had two of the miniscule vampires. That can’t be much fun. I sent an image to a friend and he suggested they may be members of the family, Ceratopogonidae, the biting midges. We humans know them by various names such as no-see-ums, and others I can’t print here in my blog. In looking online I discovered there is also apparently a family of flies that are called the Frog-biting Midges (Corethrellidae), but these guys don’t look much like the few posted on Bug Guide. Now that I have seen them, I may go out and try to get some better images from a much closer distance. Every time I look, I see something new. Fascinating, unless perhaps you are the frog with itchy eyeballs.