Bullfrogs Eat Everything - Are They At Peace?

Bullfrogs eat everything, and I mean everything, including each other. It's hard for me to remember how fascinated I was, as a child, with tadpoles. Bullfrogs don't have claws or any of the other usual design tools to use in catching prey. What they do have is a huge mouth and the ability to jump. This puts even birds in jeopardy!

Watching my kids grow up with Kermit, I was kindly disposed towards frogs...until I started learning about them. These undiscerning creatures have no ribs, so there are no 'boundaries' to speak of. Their prey motion elicits feeding behavior.

First, if necessary, the frog performs a single orienting bodily rotation ending with the frog aimed towards the prey. This is followed by approaching leaps, if necessary. Once within striking distance, the bullfrog emits its feeding strike, which consists of a ballistic (eyes closed as during all leaps) lunge that ends with the mouth opening, extension of the fleshy and mucous-coated tongue upon the prey, often engulfing it, while the jaws continue their forward travel to close (bite) in close proximity to the prey's original location just as the tongue is retracted back into the mouth, prey attached. Large prey that do not travel entirely into the mouth are literally stuffed in with the forearms.

In laboratory observations, bullfrogs taking mice usually dove underwater with prey in mouth, apparently with the advantageous result of altering the mouse's defense from counterattack to struggling for air. The tiny teeth of bullfrogs are useful only in grasping. Asphyxiation is the most likely cause of death of endothermic (warm-blooded) bullfrog prey.



Does this sound like the lovable fantasized Kermit?

Fantasy traps all of us at some time or another. Either it's a dream of being obscenely rich, or hopelessly in love, or breathtakingly gorgeous. And the society we live in fuels those fantasies for the sake of making money. But very few rich people are at peace with God or themselves. 'Hopeless' Love usually turns out to be just that - hopeless. And the breathtakingly gorgeous age just like the rest of us.

The wise King Solomon said (in part),

Everything I wanted I took—I never said no to myself. I gave in to every impulse, held back nothing. I sucked the marrow of pleasure out of every task—my reward to myself for a hard day's work!

Then I took a good look at everything I'd done, looked at all the sweat and hard work. But when I looked, I saw nothing but smoke. Smoke and spitting into the wind. There was nothing to any of it. Nothing.

The bullfrog and hedonistic people have a lot in common. There's no peace attainable without a relationship with God that means more than anything else attainable in life.

(c) 2009 April Lorier

Ecclesiastes 2:18-19 Message: And I hated everything I'd accomplished and accumulated on this earth. I can't take it with me—no, I have to leave it to whoever comes after me. Whether they're worthy or worthless—and who's to tell?—they'll take over the earthly results of my intense thinking and hard work.