Silly question but...........?

[Billbo]

Hi
In my other post I mentioned I found a frog that was deformed, I took your advice and I took him to the vets and they put him to sleep, the vets basically said he only had 1 eye but the 1 eye he had had skin growing over it and he had a bad leg and a deformed head!. But I was just wondering, I have loads and loads of frog spawn in my pond at the minute and I don't know if maybe that frog fertilized the frog spawn? I don't really know how it works but I don't want loads of deformed frogs hopping around. Can things like that be passed on? should I get rid of the spawn? I'm not a cruel person and really I don't want to get rid of it but it's something my Dad mentioned to me, he told me he thinks I should get rid....

I'm kind of confused.....

[Mentat]

Bravo for finding a nice end to frog suffering ! Hum... last thing I want is to create an issue between you, Dad, and forum. Please let him know nicely, that the way mother nature works, prevents bad genes being passed to future generations. Females know how to pick healthy "Alpha" males. The chances that malformed frog fertilized the spawn are zero!

Having said that; those malformations might be caused by man made chemicals in your area. If so; then you might see more malformed frogs around. That is not a reason to destroy the spawn in my humble opinion. Good luck !

[UncleChester]

Was that frogs deformity not the result of an injury? I would be surprised if a frog managed to live for any length of time with that level of malformation if that's the way it developed, the lack of sight and the movement problems would make it easy prey.

There's always the possibility that the frog was a female and did manage to lay eggs. Male frogs aren't generally very picky when it comes to selecting a breeding partner. Still, I wouldn't cull the spawn. If they turn up deformed nature will generally take care of business. Most of the time anyway.