Beauty or Horror? Order or Chaos? Sanity or Madness?

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This may appear to be a Hollywood special effect, or a batrachian nightmare from the dreams of Lovecraft. Maybe. Actually it's three-day-old embryos of red-eyed tree frogs. They're shown reaching their big, branching gills near the oxygen-rich egg surface.

It's from my Science News magazine of 15 August 2009, p.27 ff, or online: here.

Holy Batrachian: A Flying Frog

Imagine if Innsmouthians could fly!

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Mark Wright, WWF's conservation science advisor said: "These exciting finds reinforce just how little we now about the world around us.

"In the Eastern Himalayas we have a region of extraordinary beauty and with some of the most biologically rich areas on the planet.

"Ironically, it is also one of the regions most at risk from climate change, as evidenced by the rapid retreat of the glaciers, and only time will tell how well species will be able to adapt – if at all."

Among the discoveries are a bright green frog (Rhacophorus suffry) which uses its red and long webbed feet to glide in the air.

Innsmouthian Embryos?

Sky 'rains tadpoles' over Japan
The sky has been raining tadpoles over a coastal region in Japan, according to reports
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By Danielle Demetriou in Tokyo
Published: 5:36AM BST 10 Jun 2009
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Residents, officials and scientists have been baffled by the apparent downpour of tadpoles in central Japan's Ishikawa Prefecture. Clouds of dead tadpoles appear to have fallen from the sky in a series of episodes in a number of cities in the region since the start of the month.

In one incident, a 55-year-old man who was caught in a tadpole downpour described hearing a strange sound in the parking lot of a civic centre in the city of Nanao. Upon further exploration, he found more than 100 dead tadpoles covering the windshields of cars in an area measuring 10 square metres. Dead tadpole downpours were also reported by local officials 48 hours later in the city of Hakusan in the same prefecture.

Scientists have widely attributed the surreal raining of animals to strong winds, storms and water sprouts sucking up creatures before depositing them further inland. However, this explanation has not satisfied meteorologists in the Ishikawa region.

Officials at Kanazawa Local Meteorological Observatory told local media that they were unsure how the tadpoles had arrived as there had been no reports of strong winds at the time.

Another scientific explanation for raining animals relates to birds carrying the small creatures before dropping them as they fly overland. However, dismissing this theory, a researcher at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology in Abiko told Kyodo news: "Crows eat tadpoles but if these were spat out (by the birds), a wider area should have been covered."

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Deep in a secluded laboratory, heinous minions with batrachian faces hunched over flashing screens and turned dials with webbed hands.

"Our plan has begun. The Ishikawa Prefecture has been infected. Shall we proceed to the enxt level?"

The lead scientist's tongue lolled for a moment, then nodded approval.

"Pro-c-c-c-eed." The repulsive thing lisped.

:)

The Great Frog of India: An Innsmouthian Cousin?

By VIRGINIA WHEELER

Published: click

A FROG that constantly changes colour is being worshipped as a GOD in India.
Hundreds of curious followers flock to Reji Kumar’s home every day to pray and ask for miracles.

Now one of the country’s top zoologists plans to study the rainbow frog. But Reji, 35, who keeps the creature in a glass bottle after finding it while out watering plants, is afraid it might CROAK first.

He said: “My one problem is that this frog does not appear to eat. I keep trying to feed it but it doesn’t eat anything. I don’t know what else to give it.”

The frog was a dazzling WHITE colour when Reji, from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, first spotted it.

Then it changed to YELLOW and had gone GREY by the time he got it home.

Lift worker Reji added: “By night the frog was dark yellow, and then it became transparent so you could see its internal organs.

"It seemed like a miracle to me that this frog had so many different coats. So now people come to see him and pray to him.”

Professor Oommen V. Oommen from India’s Kerala University, said it was not uncommon for animals to change colour.

He explained: “Frogs do change colour to scare away predators.

“But from what I have heard, the frog at Kumar’s place changes colour so frequently it is a bit unusual. I will collect it for study.”

A New Batrachian God?

A spiky orange rain frog ... discovered in Colombia, scientists have revealed.
03 Feb 2009
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"Alejandra, you fool! Size? You're thinking so Euclidean. There are things - beings - which dwarf our intelligneces, of which we can't fathom with our puny primate brains, but which are but an inch across. There, in the rainforest, live creatures who were old when primates were clinging to the braches of trees, trembling. Look! My God, Alejandra, look! That batrachian thing! It comes!"