Southern Leopard Frog (Lithobates sphenocephalus)
This is a southern leopard frog that I took photos of back in 2021. I sat on these images for a while before sharing and forgot about them. I found them again while going through photos and decided to finally share them but couldn’t figure out what I wanted to talk about. Then it hit me – the eyes are fascinating. Let’s talk about those.
Normally, I can pick something about my subject and do a quick search to find out what I want to know. If that fails, I tent to make a post on social media or a forum and someone responds with the details I need. This time, it was different.
I wanted to know why there were gold specks in a frog’s eyes, what purpose they served, and what that tissue/pigment was made of. However, when you search for “gold specks in frog eyes” or anything similar, it’s a bust. In fact, at the time of writing this, that search query will produce my post on Reddit as the first result.
I never suspected elemental gold, as some suggested, but still cannot find any useful information on it. The consensus seems to be that it is camouflage, but there’s no real concrete answer to be found here – just speculation. I can agree with that considering the color of the eardrum (the circular area just behind the eye) and other areas on the frogs skin, but I don’t understand how this helps to blend the frog into its environment yet. That’s not to say I don’t have a theory.
My theory on the color, is that it helps blend the frog in with water. If you think about how a frog may sit in water while doing its frog-call thing, most of its body will be submerged. That submerged portion of the frog is likely brown to blend in with the color of the water. The upper part of the frog, being green, would likely blend with any algae or other flora on the surface of the water.
These colors would help to camouflage them from predators both in and above the water. Keep in mind, this is just my theory and I haven’t done any research to back that up. Also, it still doesn’t explain why their eyes have gold in them. Brown or amber would be sufficient for this purpose.
It is not often that I turn up nothing when doing my research. So, if any frog researchers have landed on this article, please feel free to reach out and fill me in. I’d love to know anything I can about the gold in the eyes and whether there is a purpose for it.
