The Crawfish Frog...aka...Gopher Frog

The Crayfish frog...aka...Gopher frog

Cassie holding a Gopher Frog

Gopher frog found in the field living in a Crawdad hole

I would like to tell you about the Crayfish Frog.....aka.....Gopher frog. But before I can do this you need to know a little bit about me.

I started school in the northwest Missouri town of Cameron, 1966. My father was working for the Missouri Department of Conservation as an Education Consultant. "Teacher" for those of you who do not know what an Education Consultant is or does. He worked all of northwest Missouri (18 counties) teaching students, teachers and anyone else who would listen, about Conservation and the resources we have, did have, and were bringing back to, the State of Missouri.

Now, with that in mind, I grew up with a lot of new and exciting animal, reptiles and amphibians, and not to leave out, BUGS around the house. Some were rescued from the attics of homes, such as squirrels, bats, opossums and raccoons. Others where injured by vehicles or farm equipment such as the deer, foxes. Others were just found injured like the Owls and hawks. Some where caught in live traps because they were being a nuisance OR we caught them ourselves, because dad wanted to use it in one of his talks so the people could see the animal, reptile or amphibian or insect first hand. Which by the way, sometimes made for a very interesting talk. Especially, when he would turn around to the case that was holding a nice Prairie King snake we had caught a few days before. Open it and take it out. (Now now, don't get ahead of me now) There would be this sound.........something like a tornado hitting the building.......and he would turn back around, snake in hand, to find a totally destroyed, totally EMPTY, classroom. It was sometimes very hard to get those folks to come back inside and set down.

OK......jumping to 1976. I'm now turning 16. Dad was given the opportunity to move back to Northeast Missouri where he had grown up, in order to be closer to his parents. (Who were not in very good health at the time). Still working for the Missouri Department of Conservation. (The only difference was now he only had 16 counties to work.) Which is bringing me to what I wanted to talk about in the first place. The CRAYFISH FROG.......aka.....gopher frog.

It was the spring of 1977. Close to dusk. Dad and I were headed towards the house after getting the chores done when he stopped and asked......"Do you hear that?" I stood there for a few seconds, then looked at him and said "What?" He then said "Do you hear that snoring sound?" So.......being the extremely good kid that I was......listened again. As we both stood there in silence.......I could hear a snoring sound......way off. I told him....."Yeah, I do hear a snoring sound. What is it?" Dad's face lit up as he said "It has to be a gofer frog". I looked at him with this stupid look on my face.......like......ok.....the old man is loosing it.....knowing that I had seen and heard every frog in the state.......and asked.....What is a gofer frog? Dad then did what he does best.......TEACH!!!!!!

As we started towards the house at a faster pace, he explained that the gopher frog or "crayfish frog" would fight and or kill a crawdad and then live in it's whole. Only returning to water to mate. He was excited about this, saying "I haven't heard one of those since I was a kid. We, (the Missouri Conservation Department) thought they were all but extinct. There is only a hand full of them left in Missouri and that it was believed that the pesticides used for farming had killed the rest of them off.

Armed with flashlights, dad and I set out to find, the believed to be extinct, GOPHER FROG. Now, learning from dad that the gofer frog could be heard almost two miles away, I knew that we could be in for a very long night and a longer walk. As we started southwest from the house, we crossed the gravel road and climbed over the neighbors fence and started across the field. We didn't have to go far, only about a quarter of a mile. When we found a very small pond located in the middle of an old farm. The farm had not been worked for many years, meaning that it was returning back to the natural grasses and trees that had once been found statewide. The noise was unbelievably loud. I could barely hear what dad was telling me while standing there in the dark. Then, we turned on the flashlights to find the entire pond was full of mating crayfish frogs. They looked some what like a leopard frog, just a lot bigger, almost the size of a bullfrog. We stood there watching them for most of an hour. It was a pretty neat sight see knowing that you were getting to see something that was believed to have been long gone, but yet, there they were.

The next morning, dad called the Conservation Department in Jefferson City and reported our find and had it documented as the first time the gofer frog had been heard or seen in northeast Missouri in almost fifty years.

Around 1997 or '98, with grandpa and grandma now gone. Mom and dad decided to built a new house on the farm where he had grown up. Dad did not have any interest in farming the ground so the land has been, basically, untouched for some time. I would bring my family to visit and on occasions, right at dusk, as we were leaving, dad would stop and listen. Then would say "It sure would be nice to hear a gofer frog on this farm again." A few years went by and on one spring evening......right at dusk......while I was loading the car to leave.....I was stopped in my tracks. What was that? I listened. There it was again. A snore? It had to be. I ran back inside and told dad that he needed to come outside because I thought I had heard a gofer frog. We returned to the driveway and listened.........There! Did you hear that? It sounds like it's coming from the lagoon. Dad said that he had and that it was indeed a gofer frog. We got the flashlights and searched for him to no avail. But that did not stop dad from listening every night and every night the sound would multiply until his lagoon was full of gofer frogs. It was documented again that the gofer frog had been located in a second place in northeast Missouri.

Now, every spring, there is a phone call asking if the gopher frogs have started thier mating season. (which is only about two weeks long). College students and professors come from as far away as St. Louis to study and document the gofer frog because there is very little known about it. They have now started gathering some of the eggs and transplanting them over the state in hopes of re-populating the state with a species that was once thought to have been all but extinct in Missouri.

So if you are outside just after dark and happen to hear a loud snoring sound in the distance, don't be alarmed.........it's just a gopher frog.