I Did Nothing

The unique gastric-brooding frog, Rheobatrachus silas, carried fertilised eggs in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth. It could shut down its acidic gastric juices to turn its stomach into a womb, and the possibilities for applying this process to curing human stomach ulcers, and maybe even cancer, were being studied. But the frog was only discovered in 1972 and last seen in 1981 – it was known to science for only nine years.

‘That’s a female,’ I said. ‘It’s got babies in its mouth. You oughta let it go. But he didn’t. He kept his boot on it and then pulled out his pen knife …
Young Zeek, assistant to the museum’s curator of amphibians, learns of the fate of what might have been the last Gastric-Brooding Frog, a unique Australian animal which scientists were keen to learn more from. Horrified as he is by the frog’s death, Zeek is not about to give up. He is just one of many young scientists who has decided that he can do something about preserving Earth’s endangered environmental heritage.

– February release. Ages 8-12.