THE SANTA ROSA PLATEAU ECOLOGICAL RESERVE, Calif. (AP) — The scientist traipses to a pond wearing rubber boots but he doesn’t enter the water. Instead, Brad Hollingsworth squats next to its swampy edge and retrieves a recording device the size of a deck of cards. He then opens it up and removes a tiny memory card containing 18 hours of sound.

Back at his office at the San Diego Natural History Museum, the herpetologist — an expert in reptiles and amphibians — uses artificial intelligence to analyze the data on the card. Within three minutes, he knows a host of animals visit the pond — where native red-legged frogs were reintroduced after largely disappearing in Southern California. There were owl hoots, woodpecker pecks, coyote howls and tree frog ribbits. But no croaking from the invasiv

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