Amphibians

Greenhouse Frog

Eleutherodactylus planirostris · also called greenhouse frog

Least Concern ↑ insectivorecarnivore Temperate forest Temperate grassland

A greenhouse frog is smaller than a coin and does something most frogs cannot: it never touches water. It lays its eggs in damp soil or a plant pot, and the tadpole stage happens entirely inside the egg, so each one hatches as a complete, hunting froglet. That trick has let it hitchhike on nursery plants to warm regions all over the world.

Overview

The greenhouse frog, Eleutherodactylus planirostris, is a tiny (2–3 cm) brown frog native to Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands. It hunts ants and other litter invertebrates at night, hiding by day under logs, mulch, and flowerpots. Its call is a soft, irregular chirping and whistling after dark, especially after rain — easy to miss.

No pond required

The female lays a few yolk-rich eggs in moist soil or leaf litter, the male often guards them, and each embryo completes the whole tadpole phase inside the egg, hatching as a miniature frog. This direct development frees the species from standing water — which is why it thrives in gardens, nurseries, and heated glasshouses (the origin of the name).

A stowaway everywhere

Because it breeds in potted plants and soil, the greenhouse frog is easily shipped around the world, and it is now established from Florida to Texas, Hawaii, Guam, Jamaica, Hong Kong, and beyond. Its ecological impact is debated — it may compete with native litter animals, or may simply feed local snakes and birds — and it is treated as a lower-concern invader than the cane toad or the coqui.

Status

Least Concern and increasing, secure at home and expanding through introduction. Management focus is on preventing further spread via soil and plants, not on the species itself.

Greenhouse Frog: common questions

How can a frog breed without water?

The greenhouse frog belongs to a very large group of tropical American frogs, the genus Eleutherodactylus, that have abandoned the free-swimming tadpole. Instead of laying eggs in a pond, the female lays a small clutch of relatively large, yolk-rich eggs in a moist, sheltered spot on land, such as damp leaf litter, soil, rotting wood, or the base of a potted plant. Each embryo goes through the entire tadpole phase inside the egg capsule, absorbing the yolk, and hatches as a miniature but complete froglet, tail already resorbed, ready to hunt. This is called direct development, and it frees the frog from any dependence on standing water, which is a large part of why the species colonises gardens and greenhouses so easily.

Are greenhouse frogs harmful, and should I remove them from my garden?

They are generally considered one of the less damaging introduced frogs. They are small, non-toxic, do not bite, carry no significant disease risk to people or pets, and eat mostly ants and other small litter invertebrates. The open question is their effect on native ecosystems, since a dense population removes a lot of small invertebrates and could compete with native leaf-litter animals or alter what local predators eat, and research in Hawaii and Florida has had mixed findings. For a home garden there is usually no need to remove them, and doing so is difficult because they breed in the soil. The main practical concern is not moving soil, mulch, or potted plants to new areas where the frog is not yet established.

What is the difference between a greenhouse frog and a coqui?

They are close relatives, both small Eleutherodactylus frogs from the Caribbean with direct development and no tadpole stage, and both have been spread by the plant trade, notably to Hawaii. The main differences are size and sound. The coqui is larger, up to about 5 centimetres, and gives a loud, clear, two-note ko-KEE call that can reach 80 to 90 decibels and has made it a serious noise nuisance in Hawaii. The greenhouse frog is smaller, around 2 to 3 centimetres, and much quieter, with a soft, irregular chirping or whistling that most people barely notice. The coqui is the far more disruptive invader.

Where did the greenhouse frog get its name?

From where it was first noticed spreading. As the species was carried out of the Caribbean on plants in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it turned up repeatedly living inside heated glasshouses and commercial greenhouses in the United States and Europe, where the warm, humid, frost-free conditions and constant supply of potted plants suited it perfectly and let it survive well outside the tropics. Outdoors it is now established across the warm southern United States and many other regions, but the name stuck from those early greenhouse populations.

Sources & further reading

Written by HideShark Editorial Team · reviewed by HideShark Science Desk. Published September 10, 2026. Last updated September 10, 2026.

Quick facts

Scientific name: Eleutherodactylus planirostris
Diet: Tiny ground invertebrates hunted at night in leaf litter and damp soil, overwhelmingly ants, along with mites, small beetles, springtails, and other litter arthropods, so a dense greenhouse frog population removes large numbers of ants from a garden or nursery
No tadpole stage: The greenhouse frog lays a small clutch of eggs in moist soil, leaf litter, or a potted plant rather than in water, and the embryos develop entirely inside the egg, hatching after about two weeks as fully formed frogs a few millimetres long, so the species does not need a pond at all
The male guards the eggs: After the female lays, the male often stays with the clutch, sitting over or near it to keep it moist and to shield it from ants and mould, one of the reasons this small frog breeds so successfully in disturbed and human-made habitats
A world traveller in a plant pot: Because it breeds in soil and potted plants, the greenhouse frog is easily moved around the world in shipments of ornamental plants, nursery stock, and landscaping material, which is how it spread from Cuba, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands to Florida, the Gulf states, Hawaii, Guam, Hong Kong, and beyond
The chirping you hear at night: The call is a soft, irregular series of chirps and short whistles, often described as bird-like or cricket-like, given from the ground or low vegetation after dark and especially after rain, and in places where the frog is abundant it is a constant background sound at night
It is small and cryptic: An adult greenhouse frog is only about 2 to 3 cm long, reddish-brown or grey-brown, either mottled or with two pale stripes down the back, and it is easily overlooked, spending the day hidden under logs, rocks, mulch, and plant pots and emerging only at night
Its impact is debated: In its introduced range the greenhouse frog is abundant but its ecological effect is unclear, with concern that it competes with native litter animals and shifts the diet of predators, but also evidence that in some places it simply adds to the food supply for snakes and birds without displacing anything, so it is treated as a lower-concern invader than the cane toad or the coqui
Range: Native to Cuba, the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, and nearby islands, and introduced and established across the southeastern United States from Florida to Texas and Louisiana, in Hawaii, Guam, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Hong Kong, and other warm regions, in gardens, plant nurseries, greenhouses, parks, agricultural land, hammock forest, and disturbed woodland, wherever the ground stays moist and frost is rare.
Conservation status: Least Concern ↑ ≈ The greenhouse frog is assessed as Least Concern with an increasing overall trend, being abundant and secure in its native West Indian range and expanding steadily through introduction across the subtropics and tropics, so it is not of conservation concern as a species, and management interest is instead focused on preventing its further spread and on understanding whether it harms native invertebrate communities in places such as Hawaii and Florida in the wild