Here is my tadpole tank. Note that the top and bottom are not visible.
Here is my tadpole tank. Note that the top and bottom are not visible.
Here is the top of my tadpole tank. We can't see above the surface because of this huge mass of frog eggs in the way. Presumably there's a gigantic, perpetually orgiastic ball of frogs above this that's supplying the eggs because they never seem to run out.
Meet Apepnu, my pet crawfish. He eats the dead tadpoles. And sometimes the live ones.
The tadpoles eat each other too, because there is nothing else edible in the tank.
The smarter tadpoles get into groups to bully (and sometimes eat) the other tadpoles.
Soon a tenuous hierarchy is maintained, run by the bigger tadpoles.
And kept in place by brute force.
The big tadpoles tend towards the bottom of the tank...
...and die from lack of oxygen...
...if Apepnu doesn't get them first.
Meanwhile, the smaller, younger tadpoles are banding together and launching strategic attacks to hasten the bigger tadpoles' deaths.
The poisonous red tadpoles are one of their most powerful weapons.
Some tadpoles get so big that even Apepnu can't finish them.
These are usually the ones that have been poisoned.
The stink kills many tadpoles at a time.
And I can't stop looking at the huge fat carcass until Apepnu takes it away.