Inhabitants of Ishikawa prefecture in Japan faced a strange phenomenon - a "rain" of tadpoles fell on the region
It is reported that since the beginning of June, similar incidents have been recorded in several cities in the prefecture. For example, the publication describes a case witnessed by a 55-year-old resident of the city of Nanao: "rain" of tadpoles caught him in a parking lot in the city's business district. The Japanese said that the fall of the tadpoles to the ground was accompanied by a strange sound.
Looking around, he saw that the windshields of the cars parked in the parking lot were covered with dead tadpoles. According to him, in ten square meters of parking, he was able to make out more than a hundred amphibian larvae.
Within 48 hours, a similar case occurred in the city of Hakusan, located in the same Ishikawa prefecture. Scientists are still at a loss to answer the question of what caused the incident. Presumably, the tadpoles could have been transported to Ishikawa by strong winds, but meteorologists do not agree with this theory. According to them, in the days when "rains" from larvae were recorded in the cities of the prefecture, the weather in the region was calm.
Experts put forward another point of view: scientists suggested that flying birds dropped the tadpoles to the ground, carrying the larvae in their beaks. However, bird watchers have spoken out strongly against this assumption.
“Yes, indeed, birds feed on tadpoles. They are eaten, for example, by crows. However, if flying birds lost part of their prey along the way, tadpoles would cover a much larger area,”said one of the researchers at the Institute of Ornithology.
The "rain" of amphibian larvae was not the first case of mass death of animals in the world. A large number of bird deaths have recently been reported in Australia. More than 200 ibises, ravens, ducks, gulls and pelicans were found on May 29 near the city of Perth. Scientists have performed an autopsy on dead birds and found that their bodies exceeded the content of fenthion, a pesticide that is deadly for birds.
