What Kind of Plants Should be in a Gray Tree Frog Habitat?

Gray tree frogs camouflage themselves against their backgrounds.Win Initiative/Photodisc/Getty Images

Gray tree frogs are tiny, sticky-footed amphibians that have camouflage-like skin color that changes from green to gray, depending on the background in their environment. These are nocturnal creatures that emerge at night from their hiding places in trees, shrubs and swamps to hunt their prey, which includes tree crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, mosquitoes and moths. Gray tree frogs are great climbers and jumpers, often leaping off and on branches and limbs in pursuit of food.

Trees

The gray tree frog is found in moist woods and forests that are home to trees, such as oaks, hickories, tulips and maples. Tree frogs also populate coastal plains with pine, cedar, oak and aspen. The female gray tree frog deposits her eggs in water, and the eggs then attach themselves to floating vegetation. Because of its need for water, this species also lives near swamplands among willows and sumacs.

Moisture-retaining mosses, especially sphagnum and tree pillow mosses, are often found in a gray tree frog habitat. If you're building an indoor gray tree frog habitat, be sure the mosses you collect are free of fertilizers and pesticides, as these can prove deadly to tiny tree frogs. Gray tree frogs creep among the mosses as they stalk their prey. Moss-covered logs that protrude into a waterway offer female gray tree frogs a perfect route to deposit her eggs into the water.

Gray tree frogs enjoy climbing and hopping among scrubby brushes such as swamp willows, autumn olive and spice bushes that grow beneath the tree canopies of deciduous forests and fill marshy areas near swamplands. They climb among the twining bittersweet, wild grapevines and Virginia creeper that wrap around water-loving sumacs and willows that provide leafy cover for the nocturnal gray tree frog and habitat for the frog's prey. Most leafy shrubs that don't have thorns or prickly foliage or stems are candidates for the gray tree frog's habitat.