Bio question: what is this stuff?

[Mariner]

Found in a shallow eddy of a Brandywine trib last week:

There was a whole pile of this pasta-shaped gooey mess in a tail-out. I'm guessing huevos of something.

Anyclue?

 

[tomgamber]

Bull frog eggs?

 

[fritz]

Me too for the frog eggs.

 

[pcray1231]

No, not frog eggs. Toad eggs!

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

ahhhh pcray beat me too it.

http://www.umesc.usgs.gov/terrestrial/amphibians/field_guide/figure2.html

Look for eggs laid in long strings

 

[tomgamber]

cool, thanks...

 

[Mariner]

Salvelinius: sweet graphic organizer. That is quite the diagnostic tool. Nailed it.

 

[pcray1231]

The edges of that stream will likely be full of little black toad tadpoles this spring...

 

[Mudshack]

That is the tell tail sign of the reclusive Brook-bow trout. They only lay out those lines after they reach 10lbs in size, and use them as straws for breathing air in their attempt to follow darwin in the evolutionary worksheets he drew up.

lol

I am going with the frog eggs as well. Take the kids back there in about a month for some good ol tadpole hunting.

 

[fritz]

Was down back mucking around the retention pond last week. Saw strings of eggs like this and said to my wife "You should see all the frog eggs down there". Wrong, huh? Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[FiveWeight]

Frog eggs are like blobs of jelly and have little black/brown dots throughout.... Tadpoles. Salvelinius, that is quite the link. I like it.

 

[wgmiller]

Looks like someone dumped their large intestine in the waterway... You definitely learn more than just fly fishing on this site!

 

[pcray1231]

These have the little black dots too. Tough to see cause their coated in silt, but look on the bottom right.

Yeah, toad eggs are generally in strings, frog eggs in "clumps". My wife is quite into amphibians. We have some Fowler's toads, but American toads are much more common. Pretty confident thats what these are....