The frogs are here!

Boana cinerascens, courtesy Marinus Hoogmoed

The next major group to be covered on XC is the Frogs and Toads of the world. As a start, we publish a set of recordings from the late 1960s to the end of the 20th century by Marinus Hoogmoed, former curator of herpetology at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, covering over 100 species from South America. His collections and corresponding notebooks at Naturalis have recently been digitised, made possible by NLBIF funding. Among those collections were these nice recordings. In many recordings, Marinus made comments while recording (in Dutch). These can usually be found at the end of the recordings.

What is xeno-canto?

xeno-canto is a website dedicated to sharing wildlife sounds from all over the world. Whether you are a research scientist, a birder, or simply curious about a sound that you heard out your kitchen window, we invite you to listen, download, and explore the wildlife sound recordings in the collection.

But xeno-canto is more than just a collection of recordings. It is also a collaborative project. We invite you to share your own recordings, help identify mystery recordings, or share your expertise in the forums. Welcome!

Latest News

March 26, 2024

For a few years now Geoff Carey has been steadily adding sound recordings of species from Asia. Almost 250 species now, some 1200 recordings. Great effort Geoff! Thanks for sharing here!

The stimulus for me to finally get around to uploading recordings (apart from semi-retirement!), was preparing an online Avifauna of Hong Kong. I believe it is a great example of what can be achieved with Xeno-canto. If you're interested, please have a look at:

http://hkbws.org.hk/avifauna/species

Geoff Carey on March 27, 2024

Hi Geoff, great online "birdbook" online with loads of information, if you need a Short-eared Owl song you are free to refer to https://xeno-canto.org/474679 XC474679 Yours Stein

Stein Ø. Nilsen on March 27, 2024

That is awesome Geoff. Wow.

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 27, 2024

Thanks Stein. Unfortunately, we never hear SEO in song here, as we are the southern end of its wintering range. The focus in the site is on what is heard in HK.

Geoff Carey on March 28, 2024

4 replies :: Your reply

March 26, 2024

Another bird from Shaun's list, so apparently never sound recorded before, shows up here: Malaita Owl, from Malaita in the Solomons, shared by Guy Dutson. Thanks Guy! That makes three in one month, after Quail-Plover and Magellanic Diving-Petrel earlier. Excellent!

Your reply

March 20, 2024

It seems we lit a spark :-). david m. has started unleashing his frog recordings (are your Common Frog cuts as numerous as your Willow Warbler (2870!) recordings, david?) & Marc Anderson seems to have been waiting with bated breath for this, and shares some 60 species from SE Asia and Australasia. Amazing.

Marc has now also shared a number of frog recordings from Africa. Really nice!

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 22, 2024

Great news! I'll be sharing some of my southern African frog calls too.

Lynette Rudman on March 26, 2024

Great Lynnette :-) Spread the word there!

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 26, 2024

3 replies :: Your reply

March 19, 2024

XC is now open to all frog and toad species of the world.

Outstanding!

Scott Gravette on March 19, 2024

Amazing!!

Daniel Parker on March 19, 2024

Admins, I previously uploaded a couple of frog recordings here as soundscapes. I can't find a way to change them to single-species recordings... Am I missing something? Thanks.

Daniel Parker on March 19, 2024

hi Daniel, on the first edit page, at the lower end, check "single species" instead of "soundscape". Then continue to next page and enter the species name.

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 20, 2024

To check if this works as expected, I edited one of them, XC163589. Seems to work fine.

Bob Planqué on March 20, 2024

Ah yes, thanks to you both. This is one that should have been obvious, but I was confused by the fact that the option to change from "mystery" to a given species is on the second page. In the old upload format these were all together in a group, so I didn't even bother to check the first page. But I do now remember seeing that capability there. Sorry about that!

Daniel Parker on March 20, 2024

Awesome!! Though I cannot find Pelophylax "esculentus". Any advice?

Frank Holzapfel on March 20, 2024

We follow the AMNH list, Frank. I think it is listed as P. ridibundus, see here

Bob Planqué on March 20, 2024

Ah, great.. Thanks Bob!

Frank Holzapfel on March 20, 2024

Soundscape recordings changed into single-species recordings do not show up in the collection details (f.e. Yellow-bellied toad). Or take some time ;)

Frank Holzapfel on March 20, 2024

Noticed Frank's soundscape thing too, as well as not finding P. esculentus. Also the AMNH list apparently has very odd names for some of the Australian and even American species. For example, Aquarana clamitans is "bronze frog" rather than "green frog" (and there is no melanota subspecies), Pseudacris triseriata is "midland chorus frog" rather than "striped chorus frog", and some of the Australian species commonly known there as "banjo frog" seem here to be called "bullfrog". And so on. I'm also more familiar with the American Aquarana frogs being classified in Lithobates, though I know of AMNH's objections to this.

I figured XC would go with either the AMNH list or the AmphibiaWeb one, and somehow I envisioned taking the AmphibiaWeb route even though AMNH seems structured more like a database...

Daniel Parker on March 20, 2024

Also noticing that literally this week, AMNH is looking at incorporating a paper that suggests subsuming a whole lot of Pelophylax lineages, including P. bedriagae as a subspecies of P. ridibundus. I only learned about the former thanks to XC! Now I'm not even sure what I recorded in Israel over a decade ago...

Daniel Parker on March 20, 2024

Actually they already have! P. bedriagae no longer has its own account.

Daniel Parker on March 20, 2024

Great news, thank you XC team!

Cedric Mroczko on March 20, 2024

Frank, Daniel, what exactly do you mean by "does not show up in collection details"?

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 20, 2024

https://xeno-canto.org/collection/ , frog section... There should be f.e. Yellow-bellied toad (recording changed from soundscape to single-species), but it ain't.

Frank Holzapfel on March 20, 2024

Sorry, I meant this one https://xeno-canto.org/collection/area/europe , frog section.

Frank Holzapfel on March 20, 2024

On my profile, when viewing my list of unique species, it currently shows neither Pseudacris kalmi nor Aquarana grylio, both frogs. I was wondering whether it didn't show P. kalmi for the reasons Frank mentioned - that I uploaded it originally as a soundscape. But seeing as A. grylio isn't showing up either, and since mine is still the only recording, I'm not sure anymore.

Daniel Parker on March 20, 2024

I see them now - probably just hadn't updated.

Daniel Parker on March 21, 2024

I think these pages do not update very often. Yellow-bellied Toad: it's there now Frank.

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 21, 2024

Interesting about P. bedriagae, Daniel, it was a long time before I assigned some recordings I took in Turkey to this sp and only with the help of experts, so would have assumed they were ridibundus anyway until then, although they sounded much higher pitched.

Also, I did change two of my soundscapes to species, they may not see to update straight away, and I had trouble playing and finding the files at first but that could be my connection, they seem fine now. As I say it could be my connection or browser, I had some issues uploading a Marsh Frog last night, so I will give it another go after work.

Stuart Fisher on March 21, 2024

@admins Sorry for complaining right at the beginning.... Fact is that you guys are making something unique and awesome out of XC. Thank you so much! It's great to be part of it.

Frank Holzapfel on March 21, 2024

That's ok Frank, things do go wrong from time to time as you well know, especially when new things appear. And thank you for sticking around all these years :-) Forward!

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 21, 2024

There seems to exist no multilingual list of common species names for amphibians, which is why amphibians on XC are provided only with scientific names and English common names.

It seems such a multilingual list would have to be created by amphibian enthusiasts among the XC community.

To clarify the magnitude of the problem, I'd like to present the complete extent of my English vocabulary within the subject of amphibians, which is as follows:

  1. Frog
  2. Toad
  3. Ribbitt
Ulf Elman on March 21, 2024

... fair point by Ulf. If anyone is aware of a multiligual list of commons names .... drop us a line.

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 23, 2024

There are some phone apps, there's one free one in Russian and I'm sure there's one in German

Stuart Fisher on March 24, 2024

Here's the Russian one with Russian names https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.ecosystema.amfibians

Stuart Fisher on March 24, 2024

In fact I'm going to look into this and search for Czech and Turkish common names, I'll get back to you when I get them together, I can certainly ask friends as well

Stuart Fisher on March 24, 2024

cool!

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 24, 2024

Let me know if you need a hand for the german names of european amphibians.

Frank Holzapfel on March 24, 2024

... great Frank. If at all possible from some reputed source with a reference.

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 24, 2024

JUST AMAZING! eu estava esperando por isso há pelo menos dois anos! Vou compartilhar minhas gravações dos anfíbios da mata atlântica de Ubatuba!

Parabéns à equipe do Xeno-Canto pela atualização!

Henry Miller Alexandre on March 24, 2024

... excellent Henry :-) ! and you're welcome. Spread the word in Brazil!

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 24, 2024

I don't know if it meets the standards of xc. It is in the book by Dieter Glandt, Taschenlexikon der Amphibien und Reptilien Europas. However, I think that it is the systematics itself and the scientific names that are the subject of discussion and changes rather than the German names. So just keep it in mind and let me know if you don't find anything better.

Frank Holzapfel on March 24, 2024

Well, in NL we have RAVON a non-profit of ecologists studying and protecting reptilel, amphibians, fish... I found a list there https://www.ravon.nl/Portals/2/Bestanden/Publicaties/Tijdschrift/RAVON63artikel2_NamenlijstRepAmf.pdf . Perhaps there is a similar entity in Germany? Will check out that book you mention.

Willem-Pier Vellinga on March 24, 2024

I've emailed you the list.

Frank Holzapfel on March 24, 2024

Wow, amazing! You do a great job, XC Team, don't stop!

Krzysztof Deoniziak on March 24, 2024

For Czech names: https://www.biolib.cz/cz/taxon/id37888/ Pelophylax https://www.biolib.cz/cz/taxon/id329/ Rana https://www.biolib.cz/cz/taxon/id328/ All groups

Stuart Fisher on March 24, 2024

For Swedish names of amphibians found in Sweden, there is Dyntaxa.

More exhaustive lists seem to exist, but may be lacking in provenance.

What about GBIF?

Ulf Elman on March 26, 2024

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