Mario, a biologist and freelance herp guide, knows the calls of each species, and has this knack for locating anything in the dark.  Almost immediately, we begin scanning the trees for frogs.  This river is crawling with life at night.  I turn around – a basilisk is staring back at me in a tree.  I look down – a half-foot cane toad in the water, cockroaches on the bank, katydids and caterpillars on the branches, ants up the vines, snakes on the riverside, butterflies in repose dangling from leaves, wolf spiders resting in plain sight.

Quite quickly, we find a frog.  He stares at us from a small leaf on a tree hanging over the river.  This frog is a glass frog, which means he is from a particular order of frogs, of which many species are see-through.  Some are so clear, that their bodies are like aquariums of organs.

Beyond their transparency, glass frogs tend toward the petite, making their features – eyes, legs, mouth, face – almost cartoonishly anthropomorphic.  Our lamps all flood down on this tiny animal, and we crouch in to look.  This creature, with tiny arms, quaint fingers, turns. He looks up at the black sky, and he appears like a proud man who has lived a thousand years and knows everything, and has braced for a great sorrow.

Frogs exist in nearly every environment where man exists, and they thrive in our folktales and proverbs.  Throughout human history, regardless of culture, the frog represents unexpected wisdom, unseen wisdom or cunning.  In the various frog princess fairytales of Europe (which inspired The Frog Prince), a man who chooses the frog is rewarded with an enchanted princess.  In cultures around the world, the frog often possesses a cunning intellect or knowledge about the world that only his owner sees, or that he only reveals at an advantageous moment.

Next

12345678910111213