We’ve got a new pond which must be half a mile away from the nearest lake/river yet frogs and toads have populated it almost immediately. How do they know where to find these new habitats?
In: Biology
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Amphibians explore and migrate during cool moist weather. They can cover a lot of distance that way, especially if they can find damp places to take shelter in between stages of their journey.
Most animals (including us) are also perfectly capable of smelling water from a good distance. Wind blowing across a body of water will have more moisture in its air than the surrounding air. An exploring frog that smells water on the wind will likely come to check it out.
People are explaining how animals can sense water, but another thing to think about is how many animals just die. If frogs from a pond head in several different directions, some will find new water and others will just die, either from dehydration or from predation/accidents along the way.
This kind of reminds me of the relatively frequent question about how animals manage to eat raw meat or drink stagnant water without dying, while humans can’t. And the answer is that many of them do die, and that humans could do the same if we were willing to have a much higher mortality rate.
We have a few water tanks (maniacs ponds) on our deer lease that somehow always have turtles in them. No idea where they came from or how they find them but they always do.
Did you post your pond on Twitter? There you go.
The answer most likely lies in the taste and odor chemicals 2-MIB and Geosmin. They can be detected in such small quantities and are produced by Cyanobacteria and algae. The smell that makes a lake smell like a lake.
a lot of stuff that lives in water will lay eggs capable of sticking to ducks and other water foul. Frogs don’t need to walk from one pond to the next. they just need their eggs to stick on bird feet.
Eventually you’ll find fish or minnows in your pond.
Tornadoes, strong storms and floods can carry animals like fish, and fish eggs from other bodies of water as well.
well when birds land in one body of water, the eggs of amphibians/fish can stick to the birds and be transported to another body of water. Also, amphibians do explore land and can travel some pretty good distances on damp evenings, nights, mornings.
I heard it’s because of birds too. They walk/swim through water and might get some eggs stuck on their legs. Then when they visit your pond, they might lose some. Eggs hatch and you have toads and frogs.
Also some of your neighbours might have a pond too so they might not have migrated that far at all.
Edit: spelling
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