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Happy 25th Geocaching - 🐸 Frogtopia's TB LOdGings Letterbox Hybrid

Hidden : 2/5/2025
Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:


The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates, but it is a place where the subject of this cache page could end up by accident, since us humans have invaded their habitat.  But a smart human came up with a way to help them out!

 

 

  The Amazing World of the Order of Anura.  

🐸  General facts:  🐸

Frogs have no tail, except as larvae, and most have long, strong, hind legs, elongated ankle bones, webbed toes, no claws, large eyes, and a smooth or warty skin.
They have short vertebral columns, with no more than 10 free vertebrae and fused tailbones.

Most frogs have teeth, although usually only on their upper jaw.  The teeth are used to hold prey in place until the frog can swallow it.
Not all frogs can jump. While most long-legged species can jump a distance greater than 20 times their body length, those with shorter back legs can hop, crawl, or walk.
A group of frogs is called an army, also sometimes referred to as colony, congregation, band, chorus, cohort, or knot.

🐸  Odd and interesting facts:  🐸

 World Frog Day is celebrated on March 20th. It was created in 2009 to raise awareness about the threats facing frog species around the world.

Ranidaphobia is the fear of frogs and toads

 Frogs live around the world, on every continent, except Antarctica. 

As far as scientists are concerned, there’s no difference between frogs and toads! They have different characteristics, but share the same family tree.

Frogs have permeable skin, which means liquids and gases can pass through it.  Frogs are at risk of absorbing whatever pollutions are in the water and air, and they can easily get dehydrated if they are away from water for too long.

A frog completely sheds its skin about once a week. 
After it pulls off the old, dead skin, the frog usually eats it.

Frogs were the first land animals with vocal cords.
Male frogs have vocal sacs—pouches of skin that fill with air. 
These balloons resonate sounds like a megaphone.  Some frog sounds can be heard from a mile away.  Each frog species has its own special call. Males croak during mating season to attract a female. 
The louder he croaks, the more likely he is to attract a mate.

The tadpole stage of the frog life cycle is also known as the larval stage. Tadpoles are frog larvae, in the same way that caterpillars are butterfly larvae!

 

Amazingly, tadpoles are able to control the timing of their transformation. If they’re living in a dangerous environment, like a pond full of hungry fish, they will metamorphose more quickly, to make their escape! On the other hand, if their pond has lots of plants to munch through, and few predators – or if it’s extra cold on land – tadpoles can delay their metamorphosis, and remain in the water for up to a year.

Like all amphibians, frogs are cold-blooded, meaning their body temperatures change with the temperature of their surroundings. When temperatures drop, some frogs dig burrows underground or in the mud at the bottom of ponds. They hibernate in these burrows until spring, completely still and scarcely breathing.

Every year that a frog goes into hibernation, a new layer of bone forms.  You can count these rings to find out the frog’s age.

Certain species of frogs can freeze nearly solid in the winter, and emerge unscathed when spring arrives.  The Wood frogs evolved to freeze up to 65% of their body every winter! The amphibians produce urea and glycogen to make a kind of “antifreeze” that fills and protects their cells and vital organs while the rest of the body freezes solid.

A frog’s bulging eyes allow it to see in front, sides, and partially behind it. The position of the eyes on its head gives them an almost 180-degree field of vision. Superior night vision enables these nocturnal creatures to hunt prey easily in the dark without moving.

Frogs use their eyeballs to help them eat - when a frog swallows food, it pulls its eyes down into the roof of its mouth to help push food down their throats.

One of the ways you can tell a male frog from a female is by looking at their ears.
A frog’s ear is called tympanum and it is located just behind the eye. 
If the tympanum is larger than the frog’s eye, it is male; if it is smaller, it is female.

 

Hopefully this has peaked your interest and you're ready to meet some of the Anura families that can be found in Michigan. 

🐸 Bufonidae 🐸

The species in this family have warty skin, plump bodies, short legs, and parotid glands on the side of their heads. The parotid glands secrete a poison that can repel, or even kill predators. True toads have no teeth or breastbone. Some people think that if you touch a toad you will get warts.

 

🐸 Hylidae 🐸

Tree frogs are a diverse family of amphibians that includes over 800 species. Not all tree frogs live in trees. Rather, the feature that unites them has to do with their feet—the last bone in their toes (called the terminal phalanx) is shaped like a claw.  Arboreal Tree frogs also have toe pads to help them climb and many have extra skeletal structures in their toes. Tree frogs can be a variety of colors, but most of the species found in the United States are green, gray, or brown. 

 

🐸 Ranidae 🐸

Ranidae family, true frogs, are usually largish species characterized by their slim waists and wrinkled skin; many have thin ridges running along their backs, but they generally lack "warts" as in typical toads. They are excellent jumpers due to their long, slender legs. The typical webbing found on their hind feet allows for easy movement through water. Coloration is mostly greens and browns above, with darker and yellowish spots.  Most species can be both terrestrial and aquatic as adults and breed in water to lay eggs that will hatch into free-living tadpoles.

 Just think - the next time you take a trip to rural areas, nature preserve, state park, woods, fens, plains, grasslands, lakes, stream, or other natural areas, you may encounter or hear one or more of these amazing amphibians. 🐸

 

Now to find the cache: What to do with the 3 words!

 

You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
 
 
 There is an army of 12 swag frogs to greet the FTF & several others. 
 There's even room for Travel Bugs/Trackables. 

 Please leave the stamp in the cache, it is NOT swag but part of the Letterbox hybrid cache. 

 The three gardians, Bufo, Hyli, and Rani, will continue to watch over this cache. 

 Feel free to give them different froggy names in your log.  

 

 Placement of this cache is with owners permission. 

 It's O.K. to walk on the grass to reach the cache

 (otherwise you'd need wings).

 Please be considerate of the surroundings and replace cache as found. 

 

🐸 🐸 🐸

 

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Cvax; Jnmr: '12.123456,-12.123456'

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)