Bullfrogs

The American Bullfrog is native to North America. They are found in the United States, Canada and Mexico, east of the Rocky Mountains, but have been introduced to many other localities throughout the world. In Europe and the western U.S., measures are often taken to control its spread because it competes with, and often drives out, native species.

While occasionally kept as pets, the American Bullfrog provides a minor food source, especially in the Southern United States and in some areas of the Midwestern United States. In a few locations they are commercially cultured in ponds, but the traditional way of hunting them is to paddle or pole silently by canoe or flatboat in streams or swamps at night; when the frog call is heard, a light is shined on the frog to temporarily inhibit it. The frog will not jump into deeper water as long as movement is slow and steady. When close enough, the frog is gigged and brought into the boat. In some states, breaking the skin while catching them is illegal and either grasping gigs or hand capture are used. The only parts eaten are the rear legs, which resemble small chicken drumsticks and, sometimes, the backs, which are usually fried for consumption.

The American Bullfrog is also used as a specimen for dissection in many schools across the world.

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Impacts on Bullfrogs (or any aquatic life) can be described i several categories:

Toxic:

Toxic effects are the impact of poisons on life forms. With water pollution these impacts can be realized in two distinct ways, by direct eating or adsorption of the toxin through the mouth or skin, and secondly by the ingesting of food which has accumulated poisons. This second type of intake is significant as Bullfrogs are predators (although not top preditors) and can be nearer the top of a bioaccumulation chain that starts with microscopic animals eating toxins on the stream or swamp bottom.

Mutagenic:

Mutagenic effects does not mean frogs changing into monster frogs like in an old Scifi movie. It means that the frogs develop changes at the cellular level that decrease their life spans, affect their success at breeding, cause cancers, cause deformity in the offspring or similar. These impacts are generally caused by complex organics (PAH etc) in the water or waste pharmaceuticals from sanitary sewerage reaching the water

Ecosystem related:

The impacts on the frogs can result from impacts on the ecosystem. The changes and pollution can reduce the frogs prey animals, breeding spots, hiding spots, water pH and water temperature. In addition if the pollution has impacted the normal prey of other predators they may switch to Bullfrogs as an alternative food source

From:http://jims-frogblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/not-everyone-likes-american-bullfrogs.html The native habitat of the American Bullfrog is from the Rockies to the east coast and from Ontario down to central Florida (as best as I can determine). That was in the old days. In these here new days you will find the bullfrog shoot'n for world domination... kinda. They are common in Arizona, New Mexico, California and points north into Canada and south into Mexico. They can be found in Hawaii, the Caribbean, South America, Europe and Asia.

The complaint about the Joe type frogs is their appetite in conjunction with their ability to sate subject appetite. To further exacerbate the "invasion" concern, is the lack of predators.

Of course their population explosion isn't a natural thing. People have imported these guys for reasons that range from logical to absurd. People thought the bullfrog would take care of pests. People wanted to have fresh frog legs available. People wanted their pet frogs to be free like mother nature intended. Yea, right.

So now the bullfrog is eating frogs, snakes, birds, tadpoles and any other creature they can get into their mouth. They are blamed for making some species of frogs endangered. They are changing environments where they have been imported.

In addition the bullfrog seems to be a bit smarter than the average amphibian. For instance, if people try to poison the pond where the bullfrogs are living, in most cases they just leave the pond and move on. It's said they will travel to new ponds or die trying. I say they will travel to new ponds or drytrying.

The bullfrog isn't the first creature man has imported that caused more harm than good. Right off the top of my head I recall the zebra mussel. Rabbits were imported to Australia. The snake-head fish brought to the US from China. Even koi are considered invasive in Maine. The "Old World Sparrow," which is really a finch, was brought to the US from Europe. Depending on how you look at it most people living in the US are "imported" too. Didn't the first Europeans bring disease that the Native Americans had no anti-bodies thus causing death... I think that's right.

It seems to me there is a lot of creature hate going around. I think once the horse is out of the barn it isn't going to do much good to shut the barn door. Yep, the creatures do what ever they do. Man tries to undo the error in our ways. It is pretty much a hopeless battle. I don't know if it's worth fighting... just don't know. Possibly Mother Nature could fix it but she works way too slow for us humans.

In the mean time the mussels are clogging our waterways. The rabbits are still mating in Australia. The snake-head fish is still cleaning out other species in US lakes and rivers they inhabit. The koi are destroying habitat in Maine and the sparrows are killing blue birds. The American Natives are still fighting to recoup their loses when Europeans were imported.

Phylum is quite a high taxonomic classification, bullfrogs are, like birds, mammals, fish and reptiles, in the phylum "Chordata". If however you were referring to their classification at progressively lower scales it would be:

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Amphibia (amphibians)

Order: Anura (frogs and toads)

Family: Ranidae ("true frogs")

[NB:Depending on what type of bullfrog you're talking about the genus will be different, Australian bullfrogs are Limnodynastes, African bullfrogs are Pyxicephalus etc. But the most common bullfrog in Europe and North America is the American Bullfrog Rana (or Lithobates, see below) catesbeiana]

Genus: Rana (New world true frogs and Eurasian brown/pond frogs) OR Lithobates (some taxonomists want to split the Ranidae, putting North American frogs in a seperate group from the eurasian brown/frogs...)

Species: catesbeiana

Taxonomists like to change the names of things, and most of the time they won't agree with each other! For now, the most popular name for an American bullfrog is to stick with Rana catesbeiana. I hope that helps :)