Tag Archives: north carolina

Identifying frogs and toads in NC

Although I often miss the mountains, one of the benefits of living in North Carolina's Coastal Plain is the tree frogs. During my summer at Duke's Marine lab in Beaufort, we would often return to our apartment to find the building and our door absolutely covered in frogs; in the morning, they'd be all over the car, and we'd have to pull them out of the tires. They don't seem to be quite as prevalent in Greenville, but there are plenty (they seem to like sitting on the porch, where they can taunt the cat). During a trip to Washington, NC, we ran across this stunning green little guy, and I decided to find out what he was. Read more

Crawdads in NC

In late July, my husband and I found a bunch of crawdads, including a 3-4 inch monster that is easily the biggest crawdad I've ever seen near the mountains, resting in a small pool along the Roaring River in North Carolina. My toes have been at the receiving end of one too many pinches and I found this thing terrifying, but even though I refused to touch it, we managed to catch it a bucket. Fortunately, my Ohio-raised grandfather fearlessly displayed it for a few photographs before we returned the creature to its kingdom. There were several other crawdads much smaller and, based on coloration, of different species than the big guy. Read more