Bullfrogs eating fish.

[ponderpaul]

Hunted bullfrogs for eating as a kid growing up in Kansas. Don’t remember ever finding a fish in one but do remember finding a snake in one. :razz:

 

[sissy]

oh yuck :razz:

 

[SE18]

well it's so cold here with snow predicted for next few days that I miss my frogs, which are still in hibernation, so I did the next best thing and took out my plastic animals to play with. Not frogs but these critters

 

[sissy]

light rain here and just a dusting this morning that is gone and supposed to keep raining which i don't mind .House work to get done .Looking at repainting living room .I still have to put curtains back up .one of these days .

 

[SamNDeb]

I assumed bullfrogs didn't eat fish. I'd never seen any frog hunting underwater and they don't seem set up to be very good at it.

But I wasn't sure so I did some research. Many websites said they do eat fish. But to me these sites seemed to want to tell an interesting story more than convey info, so I kept going. Luckily there've been many studies done. Here's one done on Vancouver Island. To me this was much more interesting.

The sample was about 5,075 American Bullfrogs over 5 years. 473 stomachs were empty and removed from most of the results, which to me doesn't seem right. I don't know what their thinking was exactly. But still 4,602 frogs is a lot.

2.8% of the frogs had fish in their stomachs. That's 129 frogs out of 4602. If you include the 473 empty stomachs, which I would, it drops to 2.5% of frogs.

Where it gets interesting (to me) is that it varied from site to site. At more than 70% of sites no frogs contained any type of fish. Not sure if this means fish were available at all sites or bullfrogs taught each other how to catch fish and will learn to speak in the future and ultimately hunt humans, Planet of the Frogs. My assumption is there was some opportunist reason like water being shallow enough that fish were breaking the surface, but that's a pure guess on my part.

Clearly bullfrogs can eat fish. But to me "can" and "do" are a bit different and everyone would have their own opinion. I personally would say bullfrogs are not very good at eating fish, although possible. I doubt bullfrogs are chasing down fish, but maybe some future study would show they do. None of these studies showed how the fish are being caught.

For a backyard pond I would think it's even less likely a bullfrog would eat any fish and extremely unlikely they could eat all fish in a pond. But that's only my opinion.

Bullfrogs seem to be opportunistic.

I’ve seen them eat minnows at night when feeding bread to the fish.

They’ll do it of the minnows get close enough for an easy strike.
They’ll also eat the bread.

They actually hunt down spiders, too. They’ll go up the Lilly stalks and pick them off from their webs.

 

[WaterGardener]

They will also eat birds. Seems anything they can catch is going to be food.

 

[JamieB]

Bull frogs hunt by sight, if they can see it and catch it, they’ll try to eat it. I’ll have to be on watch as we have some very big frogs here.

 

[JamieB]

This one could easily eat a good sized fish. And it's not the biggest one I've seen, just one that was in the road so easily caught and moved to a safer location. Mind you, that my hand, and spread like that is just over 7 inches.

 

[GBBUDD]

My fish keep disappearing they are not to big yet Im just wondering if the four BullFrogs I have are eating them. Can frogs catch fish underwater?

I set up a 55 gallon tank in my garage to hold the new koi until they get bigger.

I has also thinking about making a floating cage with 1/4 square wire to float in the pond until the fish get bigger.

I wouldn't use wire but I would use fiberglass or plastic window screen

 

[Lump]

We have frogs and toads in our small pond (toads during mating season only, of course). We buy large attractive goldfish at the local fishing bait shop, at about a buck apiece, knowing that LOTS of wildlife critters prey on easy-to-see fish in small confined waters like our pond. If something eats them, we'll replace them. It's nature's way. We love our frogs, but only rarely do we get a bull frog as a resident. Mostly green frogs, which seem to feast on insects, much to our delight. If they eat a fish or two, it's fine by me.

 

[Tula]

We usually have smaller green frogs and I love them ! I don't know for sure if this is a bull frog, need to get a picture, but it is much larger than the frogs we've had in the past. I think it may have jumped for the bird the other day, but it was too big to eat and sadly it drowned.

 

[GBBUDD]

bull frogs have a hump in tincrease back one on each side of the body its more like hips. And they have larger then usual circles back under and to the back of the head. They also go ribit. Jk on the ribit

 

[BKHpondcritters]

We usually have smaller green frogs and I love them ! I don't know for sure if this is a bull frog, need to get a picture, but it is much larger than the frogs we've had in the past. I think it may have jumped for the bird the other day, but it was too big to eat and sadly it drowned.

I have numerous Green & Bullfrogs. When they're in that 'mid-size' range, it's very hard (damn near impossible, actually) to tell them apart. Best way is to look for those dorsoloateral ridges. Have them? Green frog. None apparent? Bullfrog.

Of course, the bullfrogs get MUCH larger when mature than the green frogs. After a certain size, it's obvious what they are. (When they're babies, I rely on pictures to tell me who is what.)

 

[Tula]

I have numerous Green & Bullfrogs. When they're in that 'mid-size' range, it's very hard (damn near impossible, actually) to tell them apart. Best way is to look for those dorsoloateral ridges. Have them? Green frog. None apparent? Bullfrog.

Of course, the bullfrogs get MUCH larger when mature than the green frogs. After a certain size, it's obvious what they are. (When they're babies, I rely on pictures to tell me who is what.)

It's quite possible I've got a large green frog, but never had one this large. I will try for pictures , then can look for the ridges. I didn't see it tonight while feeding the fish.

 

[Tula]

Just netted him from the swimming pool and put him back in the pond. Is this a green frog?