a field study of a frog creation myth in the making

The pond area - 8th May 2013

21st April 2013 - Field Study's Man in E17 found a dead frog in the pond.

25th April - the frog appeared to be in some sort of adipocerous state.

However by 8th May the dead frog appears to have emerged from the mouldering cocoon of fatty fungal rot. 

The field student claims he saw many tadpoles gathered on and about the dead frog.

He speculated they were eating the frog and/or had eaten the moldy sarcophagus away.

It was very difficult to photograph the tadpoles in the pond in the bright light of day given the dark silty pond base and how it created such a reflective surface. 

We do not know how the frog died or which sex it is. The field student thinks it is a female frog that drowned during amplexus. We thought tadpoles are herbiverous however the thought of them as carrion tadpoles feeding on their parent (some of the tadpoles at least) appealed, perhaps perversely, to our morbidly carnal sense of the cycles of life in the plot.

We were going to dip our fingers in amongst the tadpoles, then hesitated and thought better of it for fear of being an unwitting character in this myth in the making.