Modern art in a pond

By Aaron Horrell

This is a photo of frog eggs just below the muddy surface of a pond. I would like to challenge you.

Look at the picture for a few seconds, turn your eyes away and guess how many black eggs are in the photo. Now lay a piece of tracing paper over the image and mark off each egg as you count it.

This photo represents only about one-twentieth of the surface area covered by eggs. Many more eggs were hidden below the surface in the muddy water. If you care to do a little math, you can get an idea of how many eggs a frog can lay.

A very diverse number of critters, including raccoons, shorebirds, some insects, snakes, frogs, turtles and lizards, will eat little frogs. I hesitate to guess the total number of frog eggs that are laid collectively each year by all the frogs in Southeast Missouri. This astronomical number assures that many of the little frogs will survive to adulthood and continue the frog cycle of life.

In the lower right corner of the photo, you can see a whirligig water beetle and a small minnow.

The minnow is about three-fourths of an inch long, and the whirligig beetle is about one-fourth of an inch long.

Whirligig beetles sometimes congregate in large groups on the surface of a pond.

They are beneficial insects to have on your pond because they help keep the water clean by eating dead or dying insects that have fallen into the water.

When startled, a whirligig beetle will dart around nervously on the water surface.