Bloomin' eck! Mum finds frog in Mother's Day flowers

11:07am Tuesday 4th March 2008

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A MOTHER got a bigger surprise than she bargained for when her Mother's Day bouquet was delivered - and a frog hopped out.

Maureen Walkden, 63, from Wilpshire, near Blackburn, was unwrapping the bunch of exotic orange flowers and lilies sent by her daughter Sharon, 33, when she spotted the tiny creature.

The animal was later identified as an hour-glass tree frog from Central America which appears to have travelled across the Atlantic inside the plants.

Mrs Walkden said: "The flowers were really tightly packed with a rubber band, and there was a lot of grass.

"I spotted the frog nestling on one of the pieces of grass and I thought it was dead until I put some water on it and it started hopping around a bit.

"I didn't want to touch it in case it was poisonous, so I manouvered it into an empty icecream tub and put some leaves and rocks and water in with it.

"I don't know what it eats, if it's hungry or if it's going to die in the cold.

"I want someone who has a solaruim and collects frogs to have it.

"I think it's a baby one by the size of it because we get ones in the garden that are a similar size."

The stripy coffee and cream coloured frog is about an inch long and came in flowers bought from a stall in Burnley.

Dr Peter Stafford from The Natural History Museum said: "This is an hour-glass treefrog, Hyla ebraccata (treefrog family, Hylidae). This species is relatively widespread in Central America ranging from Southern Mexico to northern Colombia.

"Like many tropical treefrogs, this species protect their eggs from aquatic predators by depositing them on leaves above the water.

"As the tadpoles hatch they wiggle out of the egg mass jelly and drop into the water below. They eat mostly moths but also other small insects."

Ron Freethy, Lancashire Telegraph's nature expert, said: "There's no question about it that the frog is from abroad.

"No native frog of this country matches that description.

"The frog needs to kept in a moist environment because they breathe partly through their wet skin."