Decline of amphibians?

Heck, I forgot about posting these pics.....

Here's a video showing a cloud of mosquitoes around it...



And below are a couple of pics of that 5 gallon bucket I mentioned nearly three quarters filled with dead skeeters....

That is just insane ........

I bet Mosquito Magnet would like to see that video and the buckets of mosquitos. I was just in Florida and it's too dry now. Not really buggy at all, except for flies which don't bother me anywhere near as much as mosquitos do.

About amphibians. There used to be so many redbacked salamanders in the woods that when my kids were younger they would commonly ask their friends that came over; "you want to see a salamander?" and within minutes would be showing them several. Now I rarely see one. I occasionally find one in the wood pile.

It's too bad the Octenol attractant used in the magnets is toxic...mixing all them dead skeeters with mulch or soil would make a great fertilizer, huh?

Rich, to tell you the truth they are not too bad at all, I have seen them much worse before. But one reason maybe due to the airplane they started using this year. They spray from the plane at a cost of 14,000.00 a trip to spay all of Bay county once a year.

I find this observation very interesting. Here in desert country of Colorado I too have noted a decline in the Buffo population and an increase in mosquitoes.
I had attributed the increased mosquito population to my irrigated alfalfa field beside the house to the east. My reconning was that I had reduced the alfalfa field from 20 to 5 acres thus concentrating the mosquitoes to a smaller area. Reading this thread brought to mind the fact that there are far fewer toads around the bug light I set up in the outdoor rescue turtle area. Last year about this time I commonly counted 30+ Buffo around the light at night and we had almost no mosquitoes.
Last night I counted 5 Buffo around the light and I was being swarmed by mosquitoes in spite of the fact I have Gambusia in the turtle area pond to control the larva.

John, curious about what type of toad your talking about. is it the Red spotted toad(bufo punctatus)?

No, the majority of our toads are B. woodhousii. I don't think I have found more than half a dozen B. punctatus on my place in the last 20 years.
Now if I drive south about 10 miles, during and after one of our infrequent heavy rains, I run into lots of Scaphiopus couchii, and some Bufo debilis but even there the Bufo punctatus have always been very few.

Originally Posted by TheFragginDragon

It's too bad the Octenol attractant used in the magnets is toxic...mixing all them dead skeeters with mulch or soil would make a great fertilizer, huh?

Actually the mosquitoes never really come in contact with the Octenol. It is only used to attract the mosquitoes close enough to be drawn into the capture bag where they are trapped and then die from dehydration. So yes, my bamboo groves are going to be fed those mosquito carcasses... But heck with the reptiles and mice, we are never really in short supply of fertilizer for the plants.

Now, that being said, I honestly don't believe that Octenol is toxic enough to be of concern....

1-Octen-3-ol, or octenol for short, is a chemical that attracts biting insects such as mosquitos. It is contained in human breath and sweat, and the insect repellent DEET works by blocking the insects' octenol odorant receptors. Octenol is used in combination with carbon dioxide to attract insects in order to kill them with certain electronic devices.

1-Octen-3-ol is a secondary alcohol derived from 1-octene. It exists in the form of two enantiomers, (R)-(-)-1-octen-3-ol and (S)-(+)-1-octen-3-ol.

Octenol is produced by several plants and fungi. Its odor has been described as green and moldy or meaty; it is used in certain perfumes. It is FDA-approved as a food additive. It is of low toxicity with an LD 50 of 340 mg/kg.

Those mosquitos are just plain disturbing. I'm not sure where you're at, but during the 31 years I've lived in FL the amphibian population has definitely taken a big downturn (at least in my area). I know Paines Prairie took a big hit during the really bad droughts in the 80s. In my area (Hernando County) a lot of the breeding areas have dried up and never really come back. I've noticed a resurgence in the number of toads, but have never seen the big groups of squirrel tree frogs, leopard, pig and bullfrogs that I used to see. It used to be deafening around my house during a nighttime summer rainshower - it's much quieter now. Seems like we never quite catch up on the rain. Sometimes the ground gets pretty wet, but some of the ephemeral ponds are just gone now. Hopefully our rainy seasons get back on track at some point (of course less than a half inch in September did not help).


I will say this - the Cuban treefrogs are doing very well...
Bill