Animal · France, Germany, Netherlands
European tree frog
Hyla arborea — the name this animal has in the language scientists everywhere share.
The European tree frog is a small bright green frog that climbs reeds and bushes using round sticky pads on the tips of its toes. It spends warm nights hunting flies and spiders among the leaves. In spring the males gather at ponds and call so loudly that they carry far across the fields.
Picture credit: Raddy7 (Public domain) · Charles J. Sharp (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Björn Söderlund, Sw3dPix (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where does the European tree frog live?
Home: Reed beds, damp meadows and bushes near ponds.
In the wild it lives in these countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Greece.
Conservation status from the IUCN: not in danger.
The short profile
Fully grown: about 4 to 5 cm long. It weighs about 0 008 kilograms. On the menu: insects.
The story behind it
A European tree frog is barely longer than your thumb, yet it spends much of its life off the ground. Each toe ends in a round disc that grips wet leaves and smooth stems, so the frog can sit on a reed all day without slipping. Its skin is usually leaf green, but it turns grey or brown when the frog is cold or resting on bark. A dark stripe runs along each side from the nostril to the hip, and in males it loops upward near the back leg. In spring the frogs leave the bushes and travel to shallow ponds. The male fills a golden-brown throat sac, bigger than his head, and repeats a sharp rattling call for hours. Females lay small clumps of eggs among the water plants, and the tadpoles change into frogs by late summer. After breeding the adults climb back into the hedges, where they are far easier to hear than to see.
Find it on the globe
European tree frog is there as a tiny animated figure that breathes and looks around. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
Why is the tree frog green?
Green skin hides it among leaves, where birds and snakes have trouble spotting it. The colour is not fixed: the same frog can turn grey, brown or almost yellow depending on temperature, damp and mood.
How does it stick to smooth leaves?
Each toe ends in a soft disc that presses out a very thin film of moisture, and that film holds like a wet glass on a table. The skin of the belly helps too, so the frog can cling to an upright stem.
Where does it spend the winter?
It leaves the water and hides on land, under leaf litter, in a hollow log or a hole in the ground. There it stays cold and still for months until spring warms the air again.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
Last checked: