Dottie Witzel. age 12. of Columbia'

Why does a frog's neck stick out when he croaks?

Those croaking frogs are actually singings The music is made by a male chorus serenading the lady frogs. Few lady frogs bother to sing. Most of them have no singing voices at all. The frog chorus may not sound so beautiful to us. But it has an amazing record. For the frogs and the toads were the very first backboned animals to have any kind a voice. The frog chorus is the oldest singing in the world.

When you talk or sings you have to open your mouths So do the birds and most other animals. Not so the frog. When he sings. or croaks he closes his mouth up tight. He also closes up his nostrils„ While he is croaking he is not breathing.

What he does is this. He holds his breath and sends it back and forth between his mouth and his lungs. On the way air is forced over the vocal cords in the frog's throat.  There is also a vocal pouch which acts as a microphone. It is a bag of loose skin under the throat. This pouch ba3loons in and out as it fills and empties with air. It adds the resonant carrying power to the froggy croak.

This is the movement you see around the neck when a frog croaks„ It is his vocal pouch filling up with air. The actual sound is made by the vocal cords. The extra rumble is given by the air forced in and out of the vocal pouch. Meantime the frogs mouth and nostrils are tightly closed.

The frog chorus starts in early spring. Warm spring weather wakes up the singers from their winter sleep. Some are already near the water. Those that are not set out at once for the streams and ponds. For spring is the egg‑laying season in the frog world and frogs: eggs must be left in or near the water. The male frogs. arrive at the ponds first. The chorus is started by the earliest arrival. The chorus grows as other frogs arrive..

There are some ninety different kinds of frogs and toads. Each of them has his own special voice. You may learn to recognize the different voices of some of them. The dainty peeper has ‑a clear soprano voice. And no one can forget the deep, rumbling basso of the bullfrog. The chorus begins quietly early in the evening. It grows louder as darkness falls.

Sometimes the concert goes on all night long. More often it to gets down around midnight. Naturally: the biggest concerts are held in spring and early summers A number of frogs stop singing after the eggs are safely launched. But some of the artists will keep up their singing all through the summer. These fellows quiet down only when the chilly fall days arrive. Cooler weather is a warning to spend all the time possible in eating. For the croakers will need an extra layer of fat before they go into their long winter hibernation.