Sunday, March 04, 2007

News Flash for Frog Lovers

The tadpoles are hatching! The tadpoles are hatching!

I tried to take some pictures, but the ones that are swimming are way too tiny to be visible with my camera. They stay really still and blend into the sandy bottom until I move, and then suddenly they have places to go and things to do. They go shooting around with their little tails a-wiggling to their next appointment with a tasty bit of algae, and then freeze up again.

There are some mosquito larvae flitting around in there too, trying to pretend they're cute little tadpoles. But we are not fooled, you evil bloodsuckers! You must die! (Anger management specialists agree it is healthy to vent your anger at mosquitos). We need some mosquito fish, but don't want them to eat the tadpoles.

Anyway, it's hard to capture all this drama with my camera, but here are some murky shots of jelly pods:


You can sort of see the edges of a round clump of jelly, maybe:


The most amazing thing, which unfortunately is again, not visible in these pictures, is inside the jellied pods, you can see the little suspended tadpoles. That's something I had never seen before. Luckily Popsey dragged me out of the house and pointed all this out to me.

I am so excited.

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