World Frog Day

March 19, 2025

By: Erin Parker, Interpretive Services Supervisor

While March 20^th might be best known as the first day of spring in 2025, it is also an annual holiday honoring frogs. That’s right, March 20^th is World Frog Day- a time to learn about and celebrate our amphibian neighbors. Here in Michigan we have fourteen species of frogs and toads, though you’re more likely to encounter some species than others. In fact, one species, the boreal chorus frog. is only found in a few locations on Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior!

Why frogs?

World Frog Day started in 2009 to help bring awareness to the many dangers that frogs, toads, and other amphibians face. Because these animals tend to be small, slow moving, and have life cycles that are closely tied to clean freshwater, they face a variety of challenges. According to Amphibian Ark, an organization dedicated to protecting and conserving the world’s amphibians, more than a third of all amphibians are under threat of extinction.

Amphibians, a group that includes the soft-skinned salamanders, frogs, toads, axolotls, sirens, and caecilians, are cold-blooded and spend at least part of their lives in freshwater. They breathe through gills in their larval stage and most undergo a metamorphosis into an adult form that lives on land. Water remains critical to their adult lives, too, as they have sensitive skin that typically needs to remain moist or damp. Many of them breathe through their sensitive skin, too, which makes them susceptible to chemicals or pollutants in their environment as well as UV exposure. Their eggs, soft and shell-less, are also sensitive to aquatic pollutants.

Eastern gray tree frogs and Cope’s gray tree frog can both be found in Michigan. The distinguishing feature between the two species is their song!

Frog and Toad Habitats

One of the early signs of spring in southeastern Michigan are the loud and insistent songs of our woodland frogs such as the spring peeper, western chorus frog, and wood frog. These species depend on small, temporary woodland ponds caused by winter snow melt and spring rains that fill low-lying areas in wooded areas. Because they must mate, lay eggs, and undergo metamorphosis from swimming aquatic tadpole-like larva to hopping, four-legged, land-dwelling adult in a short amount of time, they start singing and looking for mates even before the ice has completely melted! Larger lakes and ponds are more likely to be home to fish, which happily eat amphibian eggs and larvae… so small woodland puddles and ponds that have water only for a portion of the year are critical to the survival of Michigan’s amphibian populations. These areas are at risk from development and, even when the wetlands themselves remain, they become cut off from the woodlands where their breeding populations overwinter when roads or homes are built across their migration areas.

Woodland depressions, like this one at Stony Creek Metropark, don’t look like much in late winter but they are critical habitat with a diverse mix of amphibians, insects, arthropods, and even crustaceans dependent upon them for their life cycle!

How can we support healthy amphibian populations?

Protecting wetlands, especially shallow, seasonal wetlands, remains one of the most important steps we can take to keep healthy, thriving amphibians in southeast Michigan. Any reduction in road salt use in the winter reduces salt entering the water and harming the sensitive skin and eggs of our resident frogs, toads, salamanders, and mudpuppies. During the gardening season, limiting fertilizers and other lawn and garden chemicals that can runoff into our waterways can help keep them safe. Providing shallow ponds or water gardens can attract amphibians, but only if there aren’t fish to consume the eggs and young!

While toads, like this American toad, can spend more time out of water and have drier skin than most frogs, they are still tied to small ponds, puddles, and other fish-free zones for breeding, egg laying, and their aquatic tadpole stage.

And most importantly, get out and enjoy the frogs and toads that surround us. Learning their calls and songs can help you both connect to the arrival of spring and recognize your neighbors. Look for their eggs in the spring in shallow water and watch them hatch out into tadpoles. It’s best to look without touching because the natural oils in our hands and all the products we use (soap, lotion, sunblock, insect repellent, etc.) can all have negative impacts on the delicate skin of amphibians.

So hop on out and celebrate World Frog Day!

Interested in learning more?

Michigan Department of Natural Resources: Frog species and calls

Detroit Zoo: Frog Watch training

Friends of the Rouge: Frog and Toad Survey Training

Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation: Frog and Toad Surveys

Nature at Night: Salamanders and Frogs at Stony Creek Nature Center 3.28.2025

Frog FunFest at Stony Creek Nature Center 4.27.2025

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