I hope I can trust all of you with this post. This frog only let me take his photo after I promised him that none of the people reading this were narcs.

Named after his unique black and white pattern, this is a Convict Tree Frog. I photographed him shortly after his escape from Frogville Penitentiary, and he agreed to sit down with me for a brief interview. We’ll call him Mike to protect his anonymity.

“So Mike, how did you manage to escape?” I asked.

“Oh you know,” he replied hesitantly, “I just, uh, got the jump on the guards one day.”

“What made you decide to leave?”

“I think it was a gradual process,” he explains, “that place drove me hopping mad.”

Mike was five years into a fifteen year sentence for amphibicide, but he’s always staunchly maintained his innocence.

“You say you didn’t kermit the crime you’re accused of?” I enquired.

“I didn’t kill him,” he protests with a slight quiver in his voice, “it was natural causes.”

“Natural causes?”

“Yeah, I swear,” says Mike. “He just croaked.”

The story was certainly ribbiting, but I remained unconvinced.

“How do you explain the frog poison they found in your bag?” I pressed.

“I, ummm, well, you see… The thing is—”

Suddenly, Mike turned and bolted into the dense jungle. Within a few seconds, he was gone, swallowed by the blackness of the Amazonian night.

It was an abrupt end to what had been a truly unfrogettable encounter.

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Convict Tree Frog (Boana sp.), Santa Cruz Forest Reserve, Peru