Frog Blog 7

(Keep reading, even if the tadpoles are not doing much… there’s a cool photo lower down.)

The tadpoles are even bigger now, but STILL no legs!! They hatched 24 days ago, and the legs usually appear between 20-30 days after hatching, so it must be pretty soon. Here’s a photo to show you their size now. (I lost my dime, so this is next to a one cent piece, about the same size!).

When I was getting water the other day, something big was skipping around on the surface of the water. It was a Fishing Spider, Dolomides triton..

She was right near the frogs’ eggs, which are now surrounded by millions of tadpoles, so she was obviously hunting them.  She waits for the tiny ripples created by her prey, then she runs across the water and grabs them and injects them with her venom.

Her Greek name is Triton, the mythological son of Poseidon the god of the sea, who acted as his father’s messenger. Here he is , and I don’t think my spider looks much like him !