Frogs

How many types of frogs are there in Britain?

There is only one native species of frog in Britain, the common frog. The common frog is distributed throughout Britain and Ireland and can grow to about 10cm in length.

Colouration is extremely variable but generally they are a shade of brown or olive brown with a dark patch behind the eye. The frog's skin is smooth and needs to be moist at all times.

The common frog is only protected from sale and trade.

The frogspawn in the pond is not developing, what is wrong?

Frogspawn can be killed by factors such as frost, fungal infection or predators.

Sometimes spawn is laid partially or completely unfertilised, these eggs will die shortly after being laid.

The local frog population can usually be maintained even if all the spawn dies in one year. However there is more of a problem if the spawn consistently dies over a number of years.

For more information, check out the froglife website.

I have a sick frog, what should I do?

The only advice we can give is to either leave the sick frog alone or take it to your local veterinarian who may be able to help it. If however you have found a large number of sick or dead frogs in your area either with or without any external symptoms then this maybe due to unusual frog mortality.  Diseases

It could also be likely that the frogs have died from a reason other than disease.

How can I move unwanted adult frogs or frogspawn?

It is not advisable to move amphibians or their spawn to other ponds as it usually leads to little decrease in population size, as the number of frogs will build up in subsequent years to replace those removed. There is also the risk of spreading disease and infection, and artificially inflating the population elsewhere. They are best left to their own devices as their numbers will be naturally regulated but if you do want to get rid of some frog spawn you can spread it on your compost heap.

Click here for more advice on frogs and frogspawn in our nature knows best article

Useful links: 

Amphibian diseases

Froglife

Also see  Amphibians section of this site.