Hi there,

I suppose this one should probably go in the Microhyla section as the pictures aren't really from the field, but anyway ... the froglets will be going back to the wild soon enough.

I was checking out an area near Taipei a couple of weeks ago when I came across a couple of puddles by the side of the road. They had a mixture of tadpole species, but I was intrigued by the tadpoles of the ornate narrow-mouth frog, Microhyla fissipes. They're almost transparent, and filter plankton from the water. Beautiful things. I didn't like the way the puddles were looking ... not only were they drying out in the sun, but farmers were parking their trucks in them, throwing cigarettes in them, dropping tar in them, etc. I took what I thought was four tadpoles, intending to release them later on once wetter weather returns.

(Incidentally, newly hatched tadpoles must be absolutely miniscule, as it turned out later that there were another three tadpoles in the water that I hadn't even seen ... they were so small, I must have mistaken them for plankton!)




Two have already metamorphosed ... I'm keeping them in a hastily-adapted terrarium until conditions are right for release. This species preys on ants, so I'm throwing in as many as I can catch. Luckily my kitchen's full of sugar ants in the summer months!

Here's one that popped his head out a couple of nights ago ... a tiny thing, smaller than my pinky nail. (This species likes to stay under leaf litter, so it's hard for me to know how they're doing.)


Thanks for looking!