The king of the pines is 1 1/2 inches long. It is the Pine Barrens tree frog, the most celebrated, most protected and most luminescent-green-and-purple critter in all the pinelands. A 1982 survey found that of 164 historically known breeding ponds around New Jersey, only 102 were still active - a 40-percent drop that put the frog on the state's endangered species list and in the symbolic forefront of the movement to preserve the pinelands.