the.com/frogspawn
thousands of tiny gambles in jelly, betting that quantity beats parenting
means The mass of jelly-coated eggs laid by frogs in still water, each black dot a developing tadpole.
from A plain English compound: "frog" (Old English frogga, a word of Germanic stock related to the same root that gave German Frosch) plus "spawn," which came through Anglo-French espaundre from Latin expandere, "to spread out" — fitting, since the eggs spread and swell in a sprawling gelatinous clump. So the word literally describes frogs spreading themselves wide across the water.
- jelly armor
- Coating swells in water, deterring predators and stopping desiccation
- odds
- From thousands of eggs, only a few survive
- oxygen trick
- Clumping floats spawn near warm, oxygen-rich surface water
- no childcare
- Most frogs lay and abandon, betting on numbers
- frozen survival
- Some spawn endures partial freezing and lives
lake tahoe frogspawn blooms — massive annual amphibian breeding events producing millions of jelly-like egg clusters in california/nevada waters each spring
wood frog mass breeding — synchronized vernal pool spawning across northeastern north america where thousands converge in shallow pools within days