NEW ORLEANS — Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog, and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what is coming next. And for at least a decade, it has had a good reason not to look.
This year, for a change, nature gave a bit of a break to one of the nation’s most endangered species.
The frogs breed only in ponds so shallow they dry up in summer. Hot, dry springs have stranded tadpoles every year since 1998, when 161 froglets hopped out of Glen’s Pond in coastal Harrison County, Miss.
The pond held water longer this year. And 181 tadpoles survived a deadly parasite, made it through metamorphosis and headed into the surrounding DeSoto National Forest. The inch-long froglets might grow to 3 1/2 inches.The wild froglets alone would nearly triple the wild population if they all survived, but that’s unlikely. Too many critters feed on the froggies.
The Associated Press
