Amphibians are some of my favorite animals, especially if we only consider tetrapods. They are just so beautifully diverse and have such a slimy cuteness about them! While I've often considered myself an invertebrate person first and foremost, amphibians (and reptiles for that matter, although the two should not be conflated!) are on my mind lately because I'm currently in a herpetology course that is full to the gills (no pun intended) with batrachians and salamanders! This page is dedicated all to amphibians, from the littlest treefrog to the biggest aquatic salamander, both currently extant and long extinct! I'll also link to other pages that are amphibian relevant here, so check those out as they get added!
The Spring Peeper (Pseudacris crucifer)
When I decided to have a feature on my 'site highlighting a given amphibian that I'm excited about, I knew just what I wanted to start it off with. Right around this time (April 2022, for all you folks reading this from the future), you can hear the cute little call of the Northern Spring Peeper basically anywhere forested or rural in Ohio. Peepers are a frog with a very distinctive call, which you can listen to a recording of here! In addition to this distinctive chirping call, spring peepers can be identified by the x shaped marking on their back, which is also where their scientific name, crucifer, comes from! Crucifer is latin for "cross-bearer", similar to how the name lucifer means "light-bearer"! Side tangent, lucifer actually originally didn't refer to Satan at all, but to the morning star Venus! Anyway, peepers are mostly typical forest dwelling frogs. They are primarily nocturnal insectivores, with males able to produce the distinctive vocalization for the purpose of attracting a mate. Some notable things about them include the fact that they are able to withstand some of their bodily fluids freezing (!!!) during their winter hibernation in more northerly regions and a practice seen during reproductive periods where "satellite males" will silently sit near males that producing louder calls, then mate with female frogs that are attracted by the call but don't mate with the vocalizing male. Pretty cool little guys!
Here's some amphibians I've drawn over the years, ranging from the realistic to the fantastical and cartoonish.
A Shulak, a Mesopotamian "Lurker of the Bathroom" that I drew for a TTRPG campaign, here rendered as a kind of salamander demon.
Some kind of salamander man, or salaman.
The only frog I've drawn and added to this page... sorely lacking in anurans!
A creature reminiscent of the prehistoric Diplocaulus, although not quite on model lol.
A pen sketch of a dead mudpuppy preserved in a jar. Turned out pretty good in my opinion!
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