The peepers have ceased their peeping, but now through the upstairs window at night we hear the croak of myriad bullfrogs down in the swamp. Gil said that they had polished off the peepers, and could even manage a meal of mice. I refused to believe a frog could eat a mouse.
But it’s true. Sometimes half a foot long, the bullfrog stalks its prey, rotating its thickset body toward it and taking muscular leaps forward, then executing a ballistic lunge (eyes closed all the while) and extending its elastic mucous-coated tongue to engulf its meal. What it can’t pull into its mouth with its tongue it stuffs in with its forearms.
“You never see a frog so modest and straightforward as he was, for all he was so gifted.” (Mark Twain)
Yes, mice do make a meal. Investigations of frog stomachs have also revealed small turtles, birds, snakes and bats.
Even another bullfrog will do.
Jean Zimmerman 