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Common Wood Frog

The common wood frog freezes solid every winter and then, come spring, defrosts and mates.

: Wood frogs are truly remarkable little creatures. They are the most widely distributed amphibian in North America, even reaching beyond the Arctic circle! They can mature from egg to transformed frog in as little as 45 days (now that's MORPHIN'!). But perhaps their greatest feat is the unique way in which they spend winter, ... frozen solid! Wood frogs are members of a rather exclusive club of vertebrate (back-boned) animals that overwinter on dry land and survive the freezing of their body tissues. World-wide there are only a few species of vertebrates that can tolerate freezing. (Baby painted turtles are the "highest" vertebrates known that can tolerate tissue freezing - yet another story to be told!) Though this feat is "no big deal" to many plants and invertebrates (lots of insects do it), it is a neat trick that enables wood frogs to inhabit many northern environments and frees them from dependence on permanent bodies of water
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