JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

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Transparent process

April 3rd, 2005 · No Comments

Watching the frog eggs develop this week surprised me. I’ve never seen a tadpole appear. The eggs which were dull black dots last Friday when I took them from the pond, now have transformed into transparent sacs, growing in size to accommodate the metamorphosis begnning now. If I move the bowl sometimes I will see them wriggle inside the membrane, these creatures now around a centimeter in length, long and thin, life shaped like a comma. Looking at the one in the tank, I can spy a pair of gills and the distinction between head and tail. It’s amazing to watch them change from egg to tadpole, as if they are in an invisible womb, or rather a visible one. I wonder what it would be like to see our own children as they change through these small stages of early life. What would we think if we could watch them form from the earliest moments? Since we can see these tadpoles as they grow, we could call it a transparent process. But it’s not transparent: I have no idea what is happening. I can only observe and be amazed.

Footnote:
I wrote this paragraph a week ago. Monday morning we noticed the tadpole in the tank had hatched. During the past week we’ve fed it goldfish flakes and watched it dart around the tank. It spends most of its time, as a proverbial aquatic ostrich might, hiding its head in the gravel, camouflaged as debris. Already the frog-like eyes can be seen as well as feathery gills. Since it is a small frog, a tree frog, I imagine that the metamorphosis will happen fast. We are excited to watch this little life transform.

Tags: homeschool

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