Frog Egg Mass1pm, Sunday, 4 April 2010
Hiking at a small park in Marietta, Georgia, I found this egg mass in a dirt road tire rut which had just dried out. No standing water was left, but the mud was slimy enough that it was clear the water hadn't been gone long. The jelly was drying on the top. Rain was not predicted for 4 days, so the frogs were doomed. I decided to take the egg mass home and watch it for a while. I put it in 1½" of creek water in a 10" x 13" plastic pan. The mass is 3½" long and the eggs are ¼" diameter. The embyros did not move continuously, but twitched occasionally. With a magnifier, I could see the external gills and other details, but it was not possible to get clear macro photo of a whole tadpole: the egg only allows a small area to be in focus.
Two of the tadpoles have broken out of the egg mass. They are just less than ½" long. They find spaces out of the sun and they stay in one place. Now I need to know what they eat.7pm 3 Tadpoles are now out of the egg mass. One swam vigorously to the corner of the tank when I moved the egg mass.
8pm 4 Tadpoles are now swimming free of their eggs, and one egg, tadpole still within, is separate from the egg mass. They sit on the bottom of the tank, even if my finger is close, but swim away if actually touched.
20 tadpoles are free of the egg mass. The rest of the eggs never did hatch, so more than half did not make it. I released the tadpoles a few days later, as they did not seem to eat any of the recommended tadpole foods.
