One Picture

SPECIFICATIONS:
Photographer: Joel Sartore
Subject: Budgett’s frog
Where: National Aquarium, Baltimore 
Camera: Nikon D2Xs digital SLINR
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 Nikon macro
Setup: Dyna-Lite strobe system with softboxes using a seamless white background
Exposure: 1/80th of a second at f/14 on ISO 100

Happy Halloween

I confess I’ve never watched the 1984 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street or any of its many sequels. I prefer classic westerns. You know, the Duke, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda. Still, I’ve been exposed to countless trailers, posters, and ads in the Friday papers for low-budget and high-gross slasher flicks about Wes Craven’s revoltingly disfigured villain who attacks his teenage victims with a metal-clawed glove. So I can imagine why collectors have dubbed a creepy amphibian from South America “the Freddy Krueger frog.”

Formally known as Budgett’s frog (Lepidobatrachus laevis), this anuran inhabits ephemeral pools that form during summer rains on the semi-arid Gran Chaco of Bolivia, Paraguay, and Argentina. Squat and stout with a huge head and an astonishingly wide mouth, it lurks in the reeds like a miniature hippopotamus with only its eyes and nose above water. Eventually large prey—especially other frogs—will come within reach of those powerful jaws. Some frog fanciers call them adorable. Sure, and Freddy in his striped shirt is a sweetheart. They’re big frogs, the females measuring five inches or more in length. And when confronted, as illustrated in this shot by National Geographic lensman Joel Sartore, they inflate themselves like a balloon, stand on outstretched legs to appear even larger, and scream like a cat in pain. If that doesn’t work, they’ll lunge at an intruder and inflict a nasty wound with fangs on their lower jaws.

When the pozos, or temporary pools, begin to dry up, Budgett’s frogs dig into the soft mud using a shovellike protuberance on their hind legs. A hard shell made from months of unshed skin keeps them moist during the long dry season. The first rains soften the shell and trigger a rush to breed, with females laying 1,400 eggs at a time. Did I mention that Freddy Krueger frogs are cannibals as well as carnivores? Indeed, the tadpoles have adultlike jaws and grow into fat froglets by swallowing their siblings whole. And if you put two Budgett’s adults in an aquarium, don’t be surprised if one of them suddenly disappears. A fabulous frog indeed, though perhaps not the best poster candidate for the world’s amphibians, which are disappearing because of habitat loss and a mysterious killer fungus.—Les Line