Note: All the photos on this page come from a sign at Lava Tree Park in Puna. We have credited the original photo owner under each photo - based on the information that appeared on the park sign.
IMPORTANT: The Coqui frog is invasive and must be destroyed to protect endangered insects in the native ecosystem. All effort should be made to remove this frog from Hawai'i.
The Coqui Frog was accidentally introduced into Hawai'i around the 1990's, probably in plants coming in from other places. Native to Puerto Rico - where natural predators exist that control the populations, in Hawai'i the Coqui has no natural predators and are multiplying at an alarming rate.
The Coqui is very small, about the size of a quarter. It has an amazing appetite and eats any small insect including spiders, flies and crickets (of which Hawai'i has species found no where else in the world).
The Coqui also has an amazing voice. At night the males climb trees and call out to the females. The male voice, which sounds like their name Ko-KEE, is 70 to 80 decibels - about the loudness of a vacuum cleaner. Because there is no natural predator, populations in Hawai'i can exceed 10,000 frogs per acre and can eat over 50,000 insects a night.
Proper eradication of Coqui can be accomplished by either hand catching the frogs or by spraying trees with Coqui in them with a 16% solution of citric acid (16% solution equates to 1.3 pounds of critic acid powder per gallon of water). When spraying, wait for dusk and then identify trees with the Coqui in them (pretty easy - they are loud) and spray the Coqui. During the day the Coqui are in the leaves and grass under the tree and are more difficult to spray.
