Where is the Museum's Giant Spring Peeper?

Haligonians have been wondering why the Giant Spring Peeper is not up on the side of the Museum of Natural History yet. For many Nova Scotians the arrival of spring is confirmed by the chorus of mating peeps made by the Northern spring peeper (a tiny tree frog about the size of a quarter) and the large model frog on the side of the museum building in Halifax

"We've had a number of phone calls and inquires wondering why the frog hasn't appeared outside yet," said Stephen Archibald, museum manager. "The peeper model should be in its familiar post on the side of the building sometime in late May."

In the meantime the large frog model, about the size of a Volkswagen Bug, is busy inside the museum as part of the popular Millennium Bugs exhibit, which runs until September. Its duty inside is to help visitors discover the important role that amphibians and reptiles play in the insect world. In Nova Scotia a Northern spring peeper's daily diet includes lots and lots of small spiders and other species such as moth larvae, daddy-long- legs, water striders, damsel bugs, midges and ants.

In Nova Scotia the first peeps were heard on Saturday, March 11, in Pubnico, Yarmouth Co., and by Monday, April 3, they were heard in Halifax and Hants counties and as a far north as Whycogomagh, Cape Breton.