Staten Island’s Frog

We interrupt this blog to remind you that while I sometimes range far and wide (Iceland, New Mexico, Nantucket, etc.) my heart remains right here in the great outdoors of the urban conglomeration that is New York City.

Nature, as I like to say almost daily, is all around us, even in the city. Case in point: the New York Times today reports that a new species of Leopard frog has been discovered. Here, in New York City, specifically on Staten Island. The Northern and Southern Leopard frogs somewhat overlap in the region, but this is an entirely different genetic beast, as yet unnamed (not that it doesn’t know its name, thank you very much). It’s obviously been here all along, of course, but like the purloined letter, even what is right in front of our faces often remains unseen.

Frog habitat, like that of all amphibians, is very much freshwater dependent. Staten Island’s course of development, a cancerous post-WWII growth, has blighted much of the landscape on that island, but the borough still has a strong component of undeveloped (undrained, unfilled, etc., how I’d like to say unpolluted!) land locked up in parks and the Greenbelt. This Leopard frog is another reason to remain aware of the threats these spaces, and their myriad species, of which there are many we don’t know anything about, always face.