"Лягушка!"
Originally uploaded by fylliska.
Remember we found frog eggs back in May? We enjoyed the tadpoles from them all summer. When it got cold outside, they still hadn't turned into frogs, so we brought them in off the balcony. Yesterday our first little frog crawled out of the water! It's been sitting on the rock, eating tiny little bugs and entertaining us since then. When we first saw it on dry land, it still had a long tail; already today there's just a tiny stump. It's amazing how from the same batch of eggs we have a frog, an almost-frog, a tadpole with little legs, and a plain tadpole right now. I wonder why they're developing at such different rates?
10 comments:
First-hand science....what a joy to see education at its finest! I will be very interested to read any answers that are given to your query about rates of development.
Thank you for sharing the story and photo. Much love....
How fun is that? Where are you getting the bugs to feed them?
We've had several toads outside. I want to encourage them to stay around and eat the bugs, so I want to make some "toad abodes" for them. One suggestion has been a coffee can, half buried, and painted. Any other suggestions?
What will you do with the frogs? Will they survive if you release them now?
I was thinking that I would have to put some fruit in with them to get fruit flies, but I didn't really want to. :-p Then we noticed the frog was eating almost microscopic bugs in the algae on the rock. That was a cute story, too. Jaan told me that the frog was smiling. I looked and saw that it was opening and closing it's mouth, and then we looked closer and saw the bugs.
I don't know how to attract toads. We always had more than we wanted!
I'm afraid we're going to have to keep these little frogs alive in here all through the winter. . . .
Congratulations on the Frogs.
I grew up in Calaveras County, California (The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain was written about the county) and we had an annual Frog Jump at our county fair.
hmmm, my idea about the different level of development with the frogs is that it is concrete proof for the theory of evolution.Each frog is evolving at its own speed, so as to enter this world at its strongest point. This is also known as the Tiny Toad Theory.
I've seen toad abodes built by laying a clay pot on its side and placing dirt and grass in it so the toad has shelter and can burrow in the dirt. A broken one works great. When I used to have tadpoles in my classroom it seemed like they always turned into frogs during the weekend and hopped out so that Monday we spent most of the day searching for frogs. Maybe you can get some cornmeal with "meal bugs" as a source of food.
To Mimi:
My father lived in Angel's Camp! My brother attended Brett Harte High school! I was never actually there to visit during the frog jumping contest. Loved the area, though!
Lindy, Great idea on the terra cotta pot. I have several unused ones outside.
Congrats on running a message board, Phyllis!
maybe they are at different stages because of competition for food? ie the less developed ones are getting less food.
Anna, my theory is something along those lines, too! There's survival of the fittest, so I think this is growth of the fittest. :-) For a while, they were divided pretty evenly into big and little, so then I thought the big ones were females and the little ones were males. (Frogs are like that when they're full grown.) But now we have only four, and each is at a different stage. . . ?
I'm also curious about what our little bugs are. I doubt that we could identify them without a microscope, though.
Ah, I see that there's an anonymous comment saying pretty much the same thing as I did. :-)
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