My son is 6. Last year his uncle and aunt gave him a small terrarium and then brought us a small frog from their yard. I don't know what kind of frog it is, but I live in the northwest part of the US and the frog is small, brown, and male.
The frog has now been living in our kitchen for about 9 months. At first we were purchasing some crickets for him to eat, but this year there are often boxelder bugs that land on our house on nice days. We tested to see if the frog would like these (which we catch with a vacuum device) and he has been thriving on this free frog food. He seems happy and occasionally makes noise.
A little over a month ago the aunt and uncle brought over another frog, this time a green one, and we put it in the terrarium. At the time I wasn't sure that this new "gift" was a good idea. I wasn't sure of the sex of the new frog, I did not know if frogs are territorial and if the frog was female, I did not think the small terrarium was a good place for frog eggs or tadpoles.
When the new (green) frog was first placed in the cage the other (brown) one croaked for a while but then the frogs seemed to ignore each other and we provided enough bugs for both of them to eat.
About two weeks later we were in the kitchen when suddenly a very loud croaking began. We looked at the terrarium and saw the brown frog on top of the green frog. The brown frog's "bubble" was more puffed out than we had seen before. Our son said: "Why are the frogs wrestling?" Clearly they were actually mating but we didn't get into that discussion.
At least we now had an answer as to the sex of the green frog, and we were happy that our original pet frog did not have to remain celibate, but I was worried about the next step. At the time I was thinking that we would probably have to release the green frog or both frogs at a pond near our house.
Now finally in this story i can get to the main point, which is that we haven't seen the green frog since that that day about two weeks ago. At first I thought that perhaps the green frog was hiding somewhere in the small terrarium while it got ready to lay eggs. (I really know very little about the life cycle of frogs.) Then I figured that perhaps the green frog died and its body is in the terrarium but for some reason not immediately visible.
We haven't looked super thoroughly because we didn't want the brown frog to jump out but we are coming to the conclusion that the brown frog ate the green one. He does not seem noticeably larger. (He was already fatter and slightly larger than the green one.) But unless the green frog is somehow buried under the moss, dirt, etc in the terrarium, there is no other possibility.
Here are my questions:
1. Do frogs eat each other? Is this even possible? What about their bones?
2. Why would a male frog mate with a female and then eat her? (Perhaps because she has no use after she lays eggs?)
3. Were the frogs really mating or is it possible that the other frog was male and there was a territorial problem?
3a. Are there gay frogs?
4. Is is common for a frog to hide somehow?
Thanks in advance for all informational answers. I realize I could probably look up all of the answers to these questions, but I thought it would be more fun and perhaps more enlightening to ask them here.