Upcoming Event - 18 January - 11 May

After posting the song "Bein' Green" which was made famous by Kermit the Frog, this post is appropriately enough about frogs also.

Green Frog (Rana clamitans)

Next Saturday (18 JAN 2014) The Alden B. Dow Museum of Science & Art will be opening its newest rotating exhibit: "FROGS! A Chorus of Colors".  This exhibit will be open until May 11th.  From the Alden B. Dow Museum website:

Explore TOAD-ally cool creatures and get eyeball to eyeball with more than 70 live frogs from around the world!

View frogs from across the globe, complete with their noisy croaks, yaps, chirps, whoops, snores and whistles, all housed in detailed habitats with rock ledges, live plants and waterfalls.
Interactive games and displays help visitors of all ages have fun while exploring frogs’ biology and natural history, the roles they play in human cultures, their importance to ecosystems and the perils they face in a changing environment.

• Check out the skeleton of the world’s largest frog and learn how the frog’s skeleton allows it to out-jump Olympic athletes
• Examine the stages of metamorphosis with preserved specimens
• Perform a virtual dissection without hurting any frogs
• Create a chorus when you push buttons to activate recorded frog calls
• Test your frog knowledge on subjects – from basic to bizarre!

Bring your camera: Non-flash photography is permitted!

In addition to the live frogs, the museum will also be featuring two other exhibits about frogs that will run until April 13th: 

Batrachology: Amphibians in Art 

Works by artists fascinated by batrachology: the study of amphibians.

Nature’s Fading Chorus: The Works of Brandon Ballengée 

Using high-resolution scanner photography, Ballengée creates large-scale portraits of frogs that document his ecological studies to increase the public’s environmental understanding.

The live frog exhibit is from Clyde Peeling's Reptileland from Allenwood, PA.  The "FROGS!" exhibit has touring across the United States and Canada since 2003 and has appeared in museums such as the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, the Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.  Most recently the exhibit was shown at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

I have actually been to Reptileland on a trip to Pennsylvania in 2009.  Shara and I were both greatly impressed by the animals on display there.  We are both very excited about the exhibit coming to Mid-Michigan. 

To view some of my photos of two frog species native to Mid-Michigan check out this post.