#vampire frogs

[pooksbedamned]

From a conversation on a hike through a spooky swamp where we heard even spookier frogs

Vampire frogs

[rjalker]

If they get well-fed every day on schedule why are they pushing and shoving.

Am I really expected to believe none of these people talk or play games or interact in any way. Author, just because you compare them to farm animals doesn't make them not people. That's not how this works.

With dusk, too, frog-guards entered the room bearing long metal troughs filled with a red jellylike substance, that they placed on racks along the wall. As the guards withdrew the men in the room rushed toward the troughs, elbowing each other aside and striking each other to scoop up and eat as much of the red jelly as possible. It was for all the world like the feeding of farm-animals, and Hackett and Norman so sickened at the sight that they had no heart to try the food. Sarja, though, had no such scruples and seemed to make a hearty meal at one of the troughs.

After the meal the green men sought the bunks and soon were stretched in sonorous slumber. It was, Norman reflected, exactly the existence of domesticated animals—to eat and sleep and give food to their masters. A deeper horror of the frog-men shook him, and a deeper determination to escape them. He waited until all in the room were sleeping before beckoning to Sarja and Hackett.

I don't think this author has ever seen a domestic animal. Even fucking cows play.

[nightshadearabians]

Hematophagy: A case study

               We thought they were simple, standard Rhacophorus vampyrus. R. Vamprus, vampire frogs, have fangs in the tadpole state to feed on the unfertilized eggs left by the mother frog. It really is a step forward in frog parenting. However, we quickly realized that these frogs were keeping their fangs well past the tadpole stage. As we had only found dead specimens we had no way of knowing what the fangs were used for in adulthood. We assumed it was for holding slippery bugs, like how teeth are used in some fish. If you can keep hold of your prey, you are more likely to gain enough nutrition to reproduce. Thus, ensuring the continuation of lines of frogs that possess the teeth.

               There had been some talk amongst the local guides about blood sucking frog type creatures, but we mostly dismissed it as local legends. Most of which had proven to be unsubstantiated. Sure, there were animals out there that they were based on, but the truth was never as weird as the tales. This time proved to be quite different. Local intelligence and legends had a way of changing over the years and morphing into much larger things. It’s easy to think you see a dragon off in the dark, just around the bend in some remote forest. That’s how mythology had begun. Surely this was another one of those things.

               We were in the jungles of Southern Vietnam when the first incident happened. As we forged through thick underbrush Rich suddenly slapped his hand to his neck, it was the only skin aside from his face that was exposed. He hollered as he pried a small creature from his skin with the one hand and used the other to staunch the bleeding. At first, we had assumed he hadn’t put on enough bug spray, but we quickly realized that wasn’t right as he asked for a specimen jar and the med kit at the same time. He dropped a very angry, slightly bloody, frog into the jar and it jumped around the sides for a while before settling in. It was still stuck by its gooey pads to the wall of the jar. It looked like a normal R. Vamprus crossed with a Hyla cinereal. But, the Hyla is an American green tree frog. That shouldn’t be here. It also shouldn’t have those visible teeth, fangs, and shouldn’t have Rich’s blood all over it’s face. We got Rich patched up and went to continue our trek. We encountered three more of the jumping biting frogs quickly after that and we filled jars and modified our wardrobes. It seemed they only aimed for the neck.

             When we showed the frogs to our guides back at camp, they just gave is knowing nods. They knew exactly what these were and told us they had been a problem in this region since story telling had begun. So, why hadn’t we heard of them? It seemed that those bitten by them lost some blood to the encounter but were otherwise unaffected. The guides told us the real danger from these frogs came from unwary campers. It seems the larger hungrier frogs came out at night, and if you didn’t have protection you were likely to die in your sleep.

We cut the research trip short.

[hasan-dyker]