Bugs, Tadpoles and Why We Aren't Covered with Frogs By Pat Gibson

Now my mother in law believes strongly in natural gardening and has been known to buy ladybugs or transfer preying mantis to her garden. She used the vacuum cleaner on the hatchlings in my husband's bedroom. At least she used it on the ones that had not been eaten by their siblings. You can be sure that anything in nature that reproduces in large numbers has a hard time growing up. Insects are the most prolific that I have ever heard about.

A couple of weeks ago I talked to a man who raises bees and he told me that a queen bee might lay 1,000 eggs a day. If she dropped off to half that the other bees would begin preparing a replacement queen. The more offspring a critter produces, the less care they seem to give it. Insects and some fish just lay the eggs and take off. In fact some fish may get eaten by the parents if they aren't fast enough. Baby bugs are prime feed for many other bugs and birds and other critters. Frogs eat the bugs, but lots of things must eat tadpoles (baby frogs). Since there are so many of them, we would be knee deep in frogs if they weren't popular food for something.

In the spring time you can go along the creek banks or tank shore and find thousands of tadpoles swimming in the water. Kids catch them in jars and watch them grow from little squiggly things to tailed frogs. If the kids have proper supervision, they can watch the little tailed frogs lose the tails and crawl up on something out of the water to be real frogs. Most of the time the new frogs drown because they don't have a rock or stick to get out of the water on. As you go up the scale of things, the more care a critter needs at birth, the fewer come at once. Now many domestic animals do have large litters. Some dogs will have eight or ten puppies, but in the wild dogs will have only three or four puppies. They also only allow one litter in the pack at a time. The same applies to wild cats or cattle. One or two kittens or calves are normal. Man has bred critters to produce larger litters since humans are around to help raise the young. Human young take a lot of raising. With my five it is never dull.

They have a habit of collecting things like the neighbor's puppies or pretty snakes that tend to keep my life interesting. The crew has introduced me to several snakes but that's another story.