Getting fair-goers to see Green

Deirdre Newman

To find some of the frogs at the Ribbit Exhibit, you need the eyes

of an eagle. Many of them are camouflaged in their surroundings,

making it an exciting challenge for fair-goers to ferret out the

frogs.

So when someone actually spots one, it’s hard not to get excited.

“Holy moly,” exclaimed Theresa McKim, 31, of Mission Viejo as she

discovered the pixie frog lazing in his shrubs. “I’m surprised it’s

so big.”

The pixie frog does not quite live up to its name, since it has

the frog equivalent of a beer belly.

To find the Ribbit Exhibit, in the back of the Creature Feature

building, you have to brave the lizards and snake exhibits first. The

frogs are displayed behind glass windows -- most at children’s eye

level -- on a wall with a giant, vibrantly-colored mural of frogs,

tadpoles and lily pads.

In addition to live frogs, the exhibit is chock full of

fascinating frog information like -- frogs have teeth, but they don’t

chew. Instead they use their teeth to grasp the wiggling food and

swallow it whole.

One of the easiest frogs to spot is the albino horn frog, which is

light green with brown streaks. Next to the display is a card that

says the albino frog is born with 300 to 400 brothers and sisters,

and as the frogs grow up, they eat rodents and sometimes each other.

That may attest to why there is only one albino frog in the display.

Kelly Glascock of Costa Mesa brought her son Matthew and daughter

Morgan to check out the frogs, which she usually found first although

she was standing farther away.

“They love looking at all the creepy crawly [animals] and I stay

at a safe distance,” Glascock said.

Nine-year-old Holly Sykora of Garden Grove thought the green tree

frogs were the coolest since they used their Spiderman-like powers to

hug the glass display pane.

“I think they’re cool because they can suction onto windows,”

Holly said. “You can learn a lot from [frogs.]”