A chorus in the rain barrel
The same December night in the Dominican Republic gave up a second tree frog, this one perched on the rim of a rain barrel with its toes wrapped around the plastic edge. It had been calling steadily, and even with the flashlight on it, the song continued, the throat ballooning and deflating like a tiny bellows. The sound was so close and so loud that the whole garden seemed to be coming from that one frog. It was a one-frog orchestra.
This is Osteopilus dominicensis, the Hispaniolan common tree frog, a member of the tree frog family Hylidae in the order Anura. Endemic to the island of Hispaniola, it is a species that has learned to live alongside people, turning rain barrels, window screens and garden pipes into personal concert halls. On wet nights its chorus is one of the defining sounds of the Caribbean evening.
Like the rest of its genus, whose name means “bone cap,” it carries a fused bony shield over the skull, an odd piece of armor that sets these frogs apart from most other tree frogs in the region. For a frog that spends much of its life out in the open on leaves and walls, the helmet is probably a useful piece of insurance.
I turned off the flashlight and let the calling continue in the dark. Some animals are best appreciated with the eyes, but this one demanded to be heard, and it was right to insist.
