The same song, a different singer
A few days before New Year, the garden in the Dominican Republic was singing again. The same loud, repeated calls filled the dark, and this time the singer was perched on the lip of a rain barrel, half in shadow. It was another Hispaniolan common tree frog, and it sat completely still while I fumbled with the camera, only its throat pulsing in rhythm with its call. It was a perfect perch for a portrait.
This is Osteopilus dominicensis, the Hispaniolan common tree frog, a member of the tree frog family Hylidae in the order Anura. Wherever there is standing water and a bush to climb, this species is likely to be present. It is the sort of frog that defines a tropical night, calling from every direction at once until the whole garden sounds like one continuous chorus.
Tree frogs in the genus Osteopilus get their name from a strange feature: the bones of the skull roof are fused into a bony shield over the head, a cap of armor unique among Caribbean hylids. The name literally means “bone cap,” and it is one of those details that makes even a common backyard frog worth a second look.
Photographing the same species twice in one trip is not a rare event. But each individual brings its own posture, its own perch, its own way of staring back at the flashlight, and after a while you start to recognize that this is less about collecting species than about collecting moments.
