science

Sounds of North American Frogs

Sounds of North American Frogs is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Sounds of North American Frogs rather than just read about it. In short: Sounds of North American Frogs is a 1958 album of frog vocalizations narrated by herpetologist Charles M. Bogert.

Key takeaways

Sounds of North American Frogs belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Sounds of North American Frogs to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Sounds of North American Frogs from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sounds of North American Frogs is a 1958 album of frog vocalizations narrated by herpetologist Charles M. Bogert. The album includes the calls of 57 species of frogs in 92 separate tracks. The album was released on the Folkways Records label as part of its Science Series. By the 1990s, the album had developed a cult following and was featured on college radio stations. Bogert, who was then the chair of the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Amphibians and Reptiles, collected field recordings for the album from 1953 to 1957. His 1960 paper "The influence of sound on the behavior of amphibians and reptiles" elaborated on the themes from the album's booklet and marked the beginning of modern bioacoustic research into Anuran vocalization.

Background and release history From 1953 to 1957, herpetologist Charles Mitchill Bogert, chair of the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Amphibians and Reptiles, collected field recordings of frog calls in "swamps, lakes, woods, creeks, and roadside ditches" of the United States and Mexico. Bogert compiled the recordings and provided narration for the album. Sounds of North American Frogs was released on vinyl in 1958 on the Folkways Records label as part of its Science Series. The album was produced by Bogert and Moses Asch and the cover was designed by Ronald Clyne. Bogert went on to elaborate on the themes he put forward in the album's booklet in his major 1960 paper "The influence of sound on the behavior of amphibians and reptiles". The paper marked the beginning of modern bioacoustic research into Anuran vocalization. Sounds of North American Frogs was not the first album to feature frog calls. The 1948 album Voices of the Night was among the first and included recordings of 26 species of frogs from the eastern United States. It was produced by Arthur A. Allen and Peter Paul Kellogg of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Folkways Records followed Sounds of North American Frogs with the similarly narrated 1960 album Sounds of Insects by entomologist Albro T. Gaul. In 1998, on the 50th anniversary of the founding of Folkways Records, Smithsonian Folkways issued a digitally remastered version of Sounds of North American Frogs. The reissue included a 41-page booklet, an introduction by herpetologist Richard G. Zweifel, and a mention of the decline in amphibian populations. The album was reissued in 2023.

Contents Sounds of North American Frogs includes the calls of 57 species of frogs in 92 separate tracks. A "profusely illustrated" 17-page booklet accompanied the 1958 album, along with an essay by Bogert entitled The Biological Significance of Voice in Frogs. The annotated track listing from the booklet provides the species that can be heard as well as the exact location and date that each track was recorded.

Bogert's narration describes the production and function of frog vocalizations. Different categories of calls, such as advertisement calls (mating calls), territorial calls, release calls (warning calls), and choruses, are illustrated with all of the families of North American frogs. The narration discusses the role of frog vocalization in species recognition and the effect of phylogenetics on call structure. In a description of the relationship between body size and pitch, Bogert explains that the frequency of the marine toad's call is about 600 cycles per second while that of the oak toad is about 5200 cycles per second. To illustrate, the album includes a sequence of seven calls, with the species decreasing in size as the frequency increases.

Reviews and legacy

In a 1958 review of the album in the journal Copeia, herpetologist James Arthur Oliver called its accompanying booklet "the best and most comprehensive review of vocalization in amphibians that I have seen." A 1959 issue of Sports Illustrated praised the album, calling it the "last word in frog recording, not a rock 'n' roll approach but a faithful capturing of solos and symphonies, with a masterly interpretation by Mr. Bogert, the Toscanini of the frog world". The album developed a cult following and by the 1990s, college radio stations were featuring a frog "call of the day" from the album. In its October 1998 issue, CMJ New Music Monthly named the record its Weird Album of the Month, noting that the barking tree frog's hypnotic chirp "wouldn't sound out of place on an Oval record". A review in Pitchfork noted that the warning vibration of the southern toad "sounds like an outtake from an Aphex Twin record". Musician David Toop, in his 1999 book Exotica, mentions Sounds of North American Frogs as one of his favorites, describing Bogert's narration as "unwittingly comical" and "froglike". A 1999 review in Copeia of Sounds of North American Frogs by Kentwood Wells found that the 1958 album "remains the most comprehensive work to date, both in the number of species included and the variety of call types presented". The review noted that the dated commentary, such as the old taxonomic categorization and the terminology used to describe calls, could cause confusion for the general public and students.

Track listing

See also List of amphibians of Northern America

References

External links Sounds of North American Frogs at the Internet Archive Sounds of North American Frogs booklet (1998) Sounds of North American Frogs, Smithsonian Folkways

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Sounds of North American Frogs

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Sounds of North American Frogs claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Sounds of North American Frogs before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Sounds of North American Frogs ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Sounds of North American Frogs

In research: Sounds of North American Frogs appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Sounds of North American Frogs in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Sounds of North American Frogs is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1958 albums, Animal sounds, Audio documentaries, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Sounds of North American Frogs outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Sounds of North American Frogs in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Sounds of North American Frogs means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Sounds of North American Frogs out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sounds of North American Frogs in simple terms?

Sounds of North American Frogs is a 1958 album of frog vocalizations narrated by herpetologist Charles M. Bogert.

Why does Sounds of North American Frogs matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Sounds of North American Frogs?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Sounds of North American Frogs.