Frog Hunter …
Doing what I can to make the frogs at home enough to stay around I have considered what food they need, but in the months I’ve observed them I haven’t seen one eat anything at all.
Since the crucifix orchid is also a favourite of snails, there are many of them at any time, I thought they might be on a frog’s menu.
But not this time … Can’t assume anything, one plus one doesn’t necessarily equal two.
© Mark Berkery … Click on the picture for a closer look … and click again.
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Nature's Place 
Nice matching colors of the frog and the snail
wonderful image. I rarely see frogs eating either. I have seen snakes eat them though, dramatic and hard for me to witness, as the frogs are alive as they are slowly being swallowed.
It’s a wild nature all right. But they probably don’t ‘suffer’ like people do.
I wonder. I hope you are right. I try not to project human emotion on nature.
I’m pretty sure of it. You can see when a person is suffering, it has a look. More than a ‘look’, it’s ‘felt’ inside – has an inner reality. I’ve never seen the same ‘look’ on a natural creature in dire straits. Shock yes, but never emotional suffering – the personal suffering that comes from thinking that evokes emotion.
Yes, their instincts are kicked in, survival the goal. But I have heard the frogs screaming as they are being swallowed and I have heard a fawn bleating like a sheep when bears are eating them, not sure if that is emotional or pain that inspires them. Hope that isn’t too graphic for your blog, if so please delete. These experiences certainly activate my emotions. I have come to witness at my ponds… the main things happening are food (death unless vegetarian) and sex (keep the species going).
Perhaps incipient emotion, primarily associated with survival at the level of sensation rather then where suffering takes place – primarily in the area of thinking mind. As you say, instinctive.
Everything knows pain, when such shocking change occurs. So no surprise we attribute suffering to go with it – as we have come to do ourselves, suffer with the pain.
But not to detract from the beautiful being the frog (or other) is, such savagery as we observe in nature serves to elicit compassion in the observer. Doesn’t it. And that can only be an evolution of the individual’s intelligence, in this benighted world of ours (not the world of nature). So ‘purpose’ is served.
As I see it …
Cheers to compassion.
I did not know this word: benighted
it is perfect for this time of humans. Thank you for that.
What in the world?! Soooo many questions! Ha, is this how frogs lose their tails? What happened next? Did the frog hop away or just sit there and be consumed?
We have more toads than frogs in my neck of the woods. I’ve witnessed one of them oh-so-casually eat a cricket. It was so anticlimactic. There was no long tongue zapping nor any sort of dramatic thing one might see on nature shows. The toad just sat there until the cricket got close enough and then casually leaned forward a bit and grabbed it with its mouth.
Haha … What happened next was I bumped the stem and the snail retracted its stalk eyes and the frog casually hopped to the next stem. I’m pretty sure the dramas happen in the lower branches where humans can’t see much.
These frogs are ambush predators, though I’ve never seen one actually eat – been here 6mts now. Those nature shows are mostly a setup. No way they could wait around for those oh so dramatic sequences. Though they do happen and I’ve had a few, but only a few (maybe a dozen) in 16 years.