Tootie's Backyard

Knossos’s Home

Knossos lives at the edge of the swamp near Grandma’s house. He was born in shallow water at the edge of the swamp, along with more than three thousand siblings. They were born around four days after their mom laid the eggs.

Because Knossos is a frog, he was born as a tadpole, or baby frog. As tadpoles, Knossos and his siblings looked like tiny green fish with dark spots. They were born without lungs and breathed through gills and their moist skin.

A few months after birth, they began to change in a process called metamorphosis. He and his siblings began to grow legs and lungs. They metamorphosized from tadpoles to froglets, and their gills began to disappear.

As they grew their legs and lungs, they changed colors. Knossos and many of his siblings became brown, while others stayed green.

A little over a year after he was born, Knossos lost his tail and became a fully-grown frog. Some of his relatives grew faster; some grew slower. Some reached adulthood within three months. Others reached adulthood after 22 months.

Although he outgrew his gills and uses his lungs to breathe, Knossos still absorbs moisture through his skin to breathe, too. He doesn’t like being touched by people. That dries out his skin.

Knossos will start his own family in the same area this spring.

Where have you seen tadpoles?

Learn more about Knossos.

Knossos’s Hobbies

Knossos is a solitary frog most of the time, and he gets really grumpy when other frogs invade his space. This spring when he goes to start his own family, Knossos will join others in the shallow water of his swamp or in the pond across the meadow.

When they’re together, the group he and his family form is called an army or a colony.

Knossos is related to Blanche the Blanchard Cricket Frog, but Blanche and her family avoid him, since he’s much bigger and will eat them.

Tooie and Yoshi see him when they visit the wetlands with Grandma. He’s cathemeral, meaning he may be active at any time of night or day. During the summer, when the daytime temperature heats up, he becomes more nocturnal.

The first time Knossos met Tootie and Yoshi, he was digging a hole in the mud to brumate in. Because Knossos is an amphibian, he is cold-blooded and sleeps deep in the mud when the temperature gets too cold. When he sleeps in the cold, it’s called brumation.

When he is active in colder weather, he is sluggish. His lackluster winter energy is because, as an amphibian, he’s an ectotherm, meaning that his body temperature is affected by the temperature of his surroundings.

What types of frogs and toads have you seen?

Knossos’s Diet

Knossos is a carnivore who eats a variety of animals, including bugs, smaller frogs, mollusks, and crustaceans.

His favorite foods are millipedes, centipedes, small crawfish, and spiders.

He’s not a picky eater and will eat anything that is smaller than him and moves.

Knossos hunts using a combination of stationary and ambush tactics, alternating between waiting for prey to get close enough that he can capture them without moving and leaping forward to capture prey. He will occasionally chase prey if he’s really hungry or that prey is a smaller frog interloping in his territory.

As tadpoles, Knossos and his siblings ate plants growing in the water, like diatoms and other algae. Diatoms are photosynthesizing algae that have porous, fine-grained skeletons.

What other animals do you know that use camouflage to hunt?