Monthly Archives: August 2022

Since my last post, we’ve transferred another four or five froglets to the Big Tank outside. One a day, or every couple of days. I only have four more to go.

Before I adopted the use of the indoor Tiny Tank (only about a month ago), I never used to have to worry about the perfect timing for this transfer. When raised outdoors where they belong, the froglets know when they’re ready to emerge from the water. And by “emerge” I don’t mean forever. They still need water. But they can now breathe above it. So they can come and go at will, which they do.

They sit on the lily pads to catch bugs or tan in the sun, and they dive under the water for a swim. They are free to leave the tank altogether at any time. 

There is an iron grill over the tank to keep out the raccoons and other predators, but the holes in it are big enough for any tree frog to pass through.If you recall, I had to set up an indoor tadpole nursery due to a disturbing mystery that was dwindling their population in the Big Tank outdoors. Hence the Tiny Tank in the living room. I will get back to that mystery very soon. 

But first, you’re probably wondering how I know precisely when a froglet is ready to be transferred. I will address that important question in my next post.

When Linda went back inside, a spot on the living room rug caught her eye. It hopped, and then she remembered the froglet that had jumped from the tank to who-knew-where. It jumped again. She grabbed the net, while it jumped yet again, and she lost sight of it. Following its general direction, she located it under the couch. It had hopped all the way to the wall behind it. She reached under, trying to net it, but it wouldn’t budge from the baseboard molding and she feared squishing it. Throughout the pursuit, she kept calling my name, to no avail. 

Finally I went, in and realizing immediately what was going on, I grabbed the smaller net, pulled the couch away from the wall, and dangled my entire torso over the back of it, hoping it wouldn’t topple. (Don’t settle for a cheap couch, in case this happens to you. You need something that’ll hold your weight in an emergency.) I couldn’t grab it with the net, but managed to coax it into Linda’s net. Into the transport box it went, which I had just brought back from outside. 

We put it out there like we had with the others. Again the other froglets showed up, approaching, but keeping their distance. This one stayed in the open transport box for much longer than they had, clearly traumatized by preceding events. It seemed to know it was in a safe place, and was probably waiting for us to leave.

After several weeks of indifference, the cat has just recently taken an interest in the Tiny Tank, having noticed that it contains wiggly things. 

Did I not imply last post that we strive to be a drama-free household? Well, I’m afraid the hypothetical situation described there, the one to be avoided, is exactly what played out in our living room yesterday.

I could see in the Tiny Tank that yet another froglet was completely formed and ready to move outside into the bug world. In fact, I could see two. I noticed both of them in the late evening, and since it was already dark. I decided they could wait till morning so that we wouldn’t have to mess around with flashlights. They each had enough of a tail left to nourish them through the night. 

When I checked in the morning, though, I could only see one. There it was, waiting patiently on the little floating plank, looking wistfully out the window at the great outdoors, wondering how to get out there. Linda stood by with an extra net in case of a surprise leap, while I opened the lid and easily coaxed the creature into my smaller net. 

Just then: BOING! Another froglet jumped out of the water, from the right to the left, just as I was scooping up this one. Into the transport box, on with the lid! A thorough search around the area assured us that the wayward froglet must’ve landed back into the water, at the left end. Not seeing it there right away, we concluded it must be hiding in the hornwort. We’d get back to that little one after we freed this cutie.

Once outside, I delayed and dawdled because… because I’m me, and I don’t do anything swiftly. And because as usual I became entranced with watching the scene play out. Two of the froglets freed so far (not just the one, like the previous day) showed up to greet this one. 

Linda went back inside to get on with her day. But I couldn’t tear myself away from watching them. They approached each other timidly, getting closer but not closer than six or seven inches — as if to say, “Yep, this is frogland. It’s us, your mates from the indoor tank. We’re here, you’re in the right place. But let’s not be too chummy just yet.”

In the distance the motors of the Friday landscaping services began humming. I thought I heard someone faintly call my name… and then again….but no. Who would be calling me? One of the neighbor kids? One of the neighbors? But how would they even know I was back here in the garden? I dismissed it as mere hallucination. 

But wait! There it was again! Was that my name? Or just something that vaguely sounded like my name? Who would it be? 

How about Linda? Why would I not FIRST think of Linda? Instead of some random neighbor who wouldn’t even know I was outside?

I went inside to find her wedged under the sofa, reaching with a net in one hand while holding a flashlight in the other. Her voice had just barely made it out from under the couch, through the open window, and to my dimwitted ear, as I’d sat on a stool intently focused on the froglets in front of me.

To be continued.

Since that last frog release, I have released two more froglets to the wild. That last one was willing, but these others have been trickier to catch. It’s a little hairy, because I absolutely cannot let them escape inside the house – they can jump far, and hide well, and would starve to death sooner than admit that they goofed and find their way back to the Tiny Tank. I don’t know if their leaping range is significantly hampered by their tail.

When it’s time to catch one, I have Linda standing by for an extra pair of eyes and hands in case of an escape. Linda hates drama – another reason I can’t let that happen. We can’t have a scene in the living room where two humans are shouting orders and jumping around on the furniture with a miniature net and a bucket, trying to catch something the size of an almond that’s acting like a rubber band. Mayhem of that sort could endanger my popularity in the household.

Not only can they jump and hide, with the little suction cups on the ends of their toes, tree frogs can attach to vertical surfaces – like trees (and walls) and such. Hence the name TREE frog. They can get up there — making every single inch of the house a potential hiding place.

Look at little Greenie here, all ready to climb right out of the transport box and into the Big Tank and on to the Big Green Beyond. They’re a lot like people. Some are timid and cautious, anxious about what might be out there; others want to leap out into danger, just anything to get out of the doldrums.

The froglet in the last post was set free later that evening. It had glued itself to the glass above the water line, up near the top, clearly wanting nothing more than to leave. Its nutrition-filled tail was shrinking by the hour. When I reached in, the froglet practically jumped right into my net, as if it knew I was offering a path to freedom. I put it into a plastic food box with a little water, foliage, and some algae, put the lid on, and carried the box outside to the Big Tank.

Dusk was falling and I hoped it would be a time of increased bug activity. I didn’t see any, but tiny froglets need miniscule bugs, and my eyes aren’t that small. But the froglets must have bugs! And there must be LOTS of them! because once they’ve tasted bugs, there’s no going back to salad. They’re not going to go back into the water for an algae snack if they can’t find any bugs. They go from vegetarian tadpoles to carnivore froglets almost overnight. 

That’s why the right timing of their transfer to the outdoors is crucial. Once they lose interest in algae, they could starve to death without bugs to replace it. And as I pointed out, I live in a bug-free home. Fortunately they get nutrients from the gradual absorption of their tails (no, they do not fall off) while they’re honing their hunting skills. They have only a few days to learn, and their parents haven’t stuck around to teach them. 

I floated the box on the surface of the water and watched for a bit. The froglet stayed in the box even though I took the lid off. After watching a while, I went inside to bed. In the morning the froglet was nowhere to be found – and I really looked, both in the water and out. 

What exactly happens to them? Well here’s one theory, but Warning: some viewers may find this disturbing. (I know I do.) A google search of “Why are my tadpoles dying?” turned up cannibalism, among other things. I hesitate to believe it. One, it’s gross. And two, I’ve never seen them so much as nibble on each other, and I’ve been watching very closely. I mean how would they even kill each other? They don’t have teeth, or other weapons. The Tiny Tank has a bare floor and not too much foliage, on purpose so I can see what’s going on. Still, those last three bodies never turned up, so … where’d they go? (Recall that I placed fifteen tads in the Tiny Tank, found two dead on the floor the next day, and only ten remain.)

Do they just up and die when they look around and see that it’s over-crowded? And THEN the other tads eat them? I saw no tads nibbling away at the two bodies on the floor. If an animal is consumed by its peers after death, is that still considered cannibalism? (I know it is with humans. Remember that plane crash in the Andes? )

Besides, how would they do it? They can’t exactly drown themselves. I’m not sure I even believe that each tadpole needs a gallon and a half of water. If that were true, in the wild they would stay further away from each other than they do. Nor are the mass suicide or cannibalism theories making much sense. I’m exploring other possibilities.

After only a day or two of Tadpole ICU, I found two tads on the floor of the tank.

This was so upsetting. Was I now going to have to helplessly watch them die off one by one, as they seemed to be doing outside? I’d had the water tested for everything, more than once, so I knew that wasn’t the problem.

I filled their Tiny Tank with water from their Big Tank outside, so they wouldn’t be shocked by a change in bacteria or temperature. I asked at the fish store — they were helpful with my indoor setup but mystified about the deaths. (They specialize in fish, not tadpoles.) The pond & water-garden store people, who have provided me with tadpoles in years where I didn’t get any eggs, know literally everything about these frogs — except this. They seemed as puzzled as I was.

By coinkidink, my Other Three-Quarters was reading a book called Simple Fountains, by Dorcas Adkins. She came across the following simple paragraph in a sidebar entitled Stocking Limits. “You don’t want to overstock reservoirs with animals that can’t simply get up and leave overcrowded situations, such as fish and tadpoles. A good rule of thumb is to allow 3 gallons (11 liters) per inch (2.5 cm) of aquatic creature.”

I am horrified. This alone could well be the problem — which would explain not only this death of the masses, but others occurring in previous years. And now it seems so obvious. Why didn’t I think of it before?

We did the math. According to that equation, these half-inch creatures need a gallon and a half of water each — meaning that this five-and-a-half gallon tank could accommodate three or four tadpoles. That might explain why two of the fifteen died right away, and why the population of the Tiny Tank has since dwindled to ten since I put them in there. Are six more of them doomed to die?

And all of this means that my outside tank — of thirty-five gallons — can accommodate twenty-three tadpoles. Not a hundred.

I might be a frog murderer — rather a far cry from being the Jane Goodall of tree frogs.