Amphibians and eggs

[johnridley]

Photo taken in our backyard pond this afternoon. Despite the frogs hanging out in view, these are toad eggs. All the critters are making plenty of noise, but the toads are really going to town out there. Apparently we're going to have toad tadpoles in less than a week; they hatch out pretty quickly since they normally lay in vernal ponds so they don't have much time.
The frogs may be hungry, and we have birds hanging out in the pond so many of these won't hatch, but there appear to be several thousand eggs so we should get plenty of little swimmers.

Comments

[c0nsumer.livejournal.com]

Wow. Are the dotted lines eggs? I don't think I've ever actually seen that before...

I had some fun with macro photos in a pond last year, if you'd like to see them: here.

I wasn't aware of some of the details (mosquitos, and my reflection in the frog's eye, specifically) until after returning home and looking at them full res. The world of small things out there is really amazing.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yup, those dotted lines are toad eggs. They're a gooey tube with eggs in them. The line is several METERS long. Online sources say that there are typically 4000 to 8000 eggs laid. Hopefully we'll have photos of toad polys in a few days.