While I was in Kochi prefecture, I spent a lot of time looking around, with the help of knowledgeable and patient friends of course...scoping out the coast, meandering along rivers, wandering among rice paddies...in search of life.
Among my favourite finds were cute, cute, cute(!!!) frogs like this:
It's a Japanese tree frog (Hyla japonica), known as amagaeru (アマガエル) in Japanese. They're not particularly rare, but they're so adorable I couldn't help but smile and feel happy whenever I came across one of these little green gems. (Incidentally, they're not always so green. They can shift hues to better match background.)
I actually saw a couple of these delightful dumplings when I was in this area in 2014, but I didn't have proper camera equipment at the time. I packed lots of photo gear with me this visit though, which facilitated this close-up, heart-to-heart with Kermit-san:
On a different occasion, one of these tree frogs (which don't always live in trees) for some reason decided that I looked a tree. Said misguided frog hopped on to me and climbed up to take a look around...from the top of my head.
Sheesh. No respect from the locals.
I saw at least two more species of frogs, but was only able to photograph one more (turns out, frogs aren't terribly patient with camera-schlepping buffoons).
The beautiful amphibian below is a Montane brown frog (Rana ornativentris), which is known as yama akagaeru (ヤマアカガエル) in Japanese. It is a common species that is endemic to Japan.
