Bullfrogs Hearing Capacity
The bullfrog belongs to the family Ranidae and is commonly known for their deep resonant croaks, large body size and large ears (tympani). These frogs have a body size of 20cm/ 8in and have legs that are longer than the body (25cm/10in). They reside in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Africa, and many others in quiet lakes and ponds. Bullfrogs are very aggressive when defending their territories and do not hesitate to attack invaders, even if a frog. Being that the bullfrogs have large ears, they should be able to hear many sounds from great distances, but we shouldn't assume this. I would like to design an experiment that would enable me to determine the range of frequencies that a bullfrog can hear using operant conditioning. Once I have determined the latter, I would like to see how well a bullfrog is able to distinguish a specific frequency from other frequencies. For both experiments, I would need to obtain a number of bullfrogs from a natural habitat and place them in the lab made habitat, which would be similar to the one that they were removed from. Hopefully, the frogs will adapted to the new habitat and carry on as they did in their old habitat. Tampered bullfrogs such as those raised in labs or pets
In the second part of the experiment, I want to observe if the bullfrog is able to distinguish a specific frequency from other frequencies. I will attempt to do this by using the same habitat set-up as above and using a familiar call. I will use the alarm call that is made by the bullfrogs to stimulate a response. This call will be recorded at a frequency that the bullfrog can hear; this will be determined in the first part of the experiment. The experiment will begin again with the bullfrog at the platform, but with a frequency coming out of both speakers. The left speaker will have the desired alarm call at a specific frequency (suppose at 100 Hertz) and the right speaker will send an unknown frequency. If the bullfrog goes to the left pathway, than we will be able to say that he understands the difference between the two frequencies and which one is the correct one. This will then allow me to go further and not only change the frequencies but also the intensity, structure and modulation of the call in the above experiment. If the frog chooses the right pathway, it could mean that he is confused by the two frequencies. If this should happen, I would need to repeat the second part experiment until the frog was able to distinguish between the two. I would also use operant conditioning for this part of the experiment in using food as a reward and starvation as a punishment. In the first part of the experiment, I want to observe whether the bullfrog can hear the frequencies sent out to it and if so will it move in the direction tha
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Approximate Word count = 1052
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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