I was eating breakfast one morning and saw the weirdest thing on my potted plant on our outdoor table. My first thought was aliens, but assumed a reasonable explanation was out there. I posted the following three photos on a Costa Rican Facebook group.
I instantly got several messages explaining that these were tree frog eggs. Some frog must have confused the reflection on the glass table with water and laid her eggs. They would look a lot like Kermit the frog when they grew up! According to some people, they were redeyed tree frogs. According to others, they were glass frogs. So excited!
In the video, you can see their little eyes and see them moving around. So cute! I also got advice that they needed rainwater or filtered water below them. I gathered some rainwater and placed it carefully below the weird jelly area.
A few days later, a couple of tadpoles had dropped. Two of them landed on the table and not in the rain water I thought I placed in the correct position. The good news is that they are pretty hardy. I picked them up and put them in the water. They were alive and well and moving all around.
I had a cleaning bucket. I rinsed it out REALLY well and put my plant inside the bucket to make sure that no future tadpoles landed on the table. (The tadpole photo is taken from the outside of the bucket.)
By the next morning, there were a ton of tadpoles - I would estimate 40. They were swimming all around. I started planning the great tadpole release. There is a cool pond on the way to the beach that I had all picked out for them. It seemed possible that more might hatch, so I planned on waiting a few days.
Mark and I had to drive to the airport to pick up a friend. While we were out, we had the cleaning ladies come to the house. When I got back, there were no tadpoles and the plant had been moved to the middle of the bucket. I can't say exactly what happened, but I imagine that the cleaning ladies released the tadpoles into our storm water drain. In my mind, there is a puddle somewhere along the way and they all survived and will be coming to visit me in a few weeks. Hope springs eternal.
The lesson learned is that I need to label everything that I do not want cleaned.
Pura vida!
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