Frogspawn being eaten!!!

[janeinthecorner]

Hi. Frogs laid spawn in my pond a fortnight ago but it sank under the duckweed. I looked to see how it was getting on today and was horrified to find it covered with a seething tangle of pinkish worms, each maybe 3'' long, and most of the jelly had gone. There did not appear to be any development of tadpoles, they were still little spheres. It looks like something out of a horror movie. Any suggestions as to what is going on here?

[GCN lova]

im new here so i may be proved wrong but ive come across some worms like which you've described before in a lake... did they eat any tadpoles?

[Matt Smith]

Unfortunately, the fate of most frogspawn is to be eaten by something else, either at the spawn stage or the tadpole stage. Frogs tend to lay in the same area to spread the risk that it will be their particular offspring that loose out in the lunchtime lottery.

Your worms may well be leeches, most of these feed on inverts and some will happily take frog spawn.

[GCN lova]

I'd probably take thos leeches out... unless you don't want any tadpoles that is !

[Kayleigh]

Can you get a pic of the worms then someone can ID them and let you know what's going on.

[tom00_uk]

did it look a bit like a earthworm? could be Eiseniella's

i would not recommend taking the creatures out, the water body plays host to many different predator prey relationships and best to leave them to come to some sort of equilibrium

[janeinthecorner]

Thanks. I Googled Eisenella and it does look like them.

Isn't it amazing how all these creatures just turn up in a new pond!

There are no tadpoles at all. None managed to hatch

Better luck next year. I only had one pair of frogs turn up, anyway.

Thanks for all the replies