The Red Eyed Tree Frog

Kingdom: Animalia
Family: Aaglychnis Calidryas
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura

The red eyed tree frog is a type of carnivorous frog, only located in the neotropical rainforests of Central America. The red eyed tree frog will eat just about anything from grasshoppers to very small mice to its own species, small frogs. Essentially its not a picky eater but is the type of creature that in many ways is like 'waste management'. The red eyed tree frog keeps down the population levels of animals that many other creatures wouldn't bother with. It spends most of its life in trees, sleeping on the undersides of leaves during the day as it is nocturnal and climbing throughout the trees even having part of its mating process in the trees! The other half takes place in cool water places so that the female can hydrate herself and her eggs.
Much like many other Tropical Rainforest creatures its habitat revolves around trees. It lives in the higher branches, catching most of its diet there and hides from predators in the tree canopy. Its habitat will of course consist of some kind of watering hole as well. Deforestation and rainfall are the two biggest concerns for the red eyed tree frog with temperature rising coming in at a close third. Only because it needs plenty of moisture in its skin for survival, but if there is water around and the shade from the trees, makes the a minor threat compared to the other two. Though, as the temperature rises and rainfall decreases so will the watering holes. This means that not only will they not have an area to cool down but hydrating themselves in water is a necessary part to their mating cycle so with less watering areas, there will be less red eyed tree frogs born each year. On top of that, with deforestation the other aspect of their habitat is being destroyed so it won't be able to support such a large population and many of them will be lost to predators and of course the fact that many of the creatures they hunt and their homes will be eradicated from the areas they populate.
Without the red eyed tree frog, there will be an issue of pest control. Grasshoppers and insects as well as other small mammals will have less predators hunting them so there populations will grow but the area might not be able to sustain them. Many of them will feed on vegetation causing it decline, which will affect the soil, therefore affect the future growth of vegetation as well as push a dent in the diets of other animals feeding off the same foods. Another thing that will be affected is the commercial protection of Tropical Rainforest around the globe as the red eyed tree frog is a staple in the advertising community, representing the colourful beauty available in the Tropical Rainforests. Without creatures like this being shown, people lose interest citing 'nothing special' or just not noticing as much. Like when a lead model gets taken from a 'L'Oreal' campaign, the gross amounts of money coming into to do anything it can to help the situation occurring in the Tropical Rainforests, will suffer.


Sarah Wilkins