what is this egg? I'm completely stumpped!

[pawziclawzi]

The easiest way to find out what kind of egg I have here is to wait of course...but, I was hoping that someone here may know what kind of egg this is.​

To me, it doesn't look like a frog egg, at least not the kind I usually find. Last night I was pretty sure that they were frog eggs, possibly a smaller frog--like a tree frog? But, this morning when I looked at them, they appeared to be elongated and more oval than the day before. Suddenly very curious, I took some pictures.​

I found these eggs on the edge of a boggish lake, they were attached loosely to some grass and were quite difficult to pick up. They don't stay together well, and don't appear to cluster like frog eggs do. I've never seen anything quite like this before. I'm baffled.​

If anyone has any ideas I'd be happy to hear them! If they are frog eggs, what kind are they?​

 

[katebutton]

salamander eggs! i'm sure someone else will be more familiar than i with the caudate fauna of the collection site and can probably narrow down a few species to suspect.

 

[Azhael]

My guess is some species of Bufo...but i don´t know american species so i have no idea.
I doubt they are from any kind of caudate...but i could be wrong, obviously.

 

[pawziclawzi]

salamander eggs! i'm sure someone else will be more familiar than i with the caudate fauna of the collection site and can probably narrow down a few species to suspect.

really!? That would be fantastic. They seemed a little oddly shapped to be frog eggs...and after finding this picture I thought that perhaps they were eggs from a yellow spotted salamandar--because they are fairly common where I am from.​

This is very exciting​

 

[pawziclawzi]

My guess is some species of Bufo...but i don´t know american species so i have no idea.
I doubt they are from any kind of caudate...but i could be wrong, obviously.

I thought that frog eggs were much more rounded than this though...and I've raised many tadpoles before, but the eggs always had a thick jelly casing--where these eggs have a very thin jelly casing. Also, it may be hard to tell in these pictures...but, the eggs are quite small, much smaller than an average frog.

 

[Azhael]

Come to think of it i don´t know why i said Bufo(perhaps because the embryos are black xD)...they usually lay strings of eggs.
Spotted salamander eggs, as with many other species, are laid in compact masses usually enclosed in some gelatinous cover. The eggs on the pictured look too scattered for that..i don´t know..
Plus the photos of developing embryos i´ve seen were greyish instead of solid black...
I´d say frog eggs, but no idea of the genus.

 

[John]

Definitely not Spotted Salamanders. Most likely some kind of frog - they don't look like salamander embryos. Spotted Salamander egg masses are hard to confuse with anything else.

 

[pawziclawzi]

hm...well, I guess I will wait and see! I'll update you guys with what exact species the eggs hatch as

 

[petro]

hm...well, I guess I will wait and see! I'll update you guys with what exact species the eggs hatch as

I only can say;Frog eggs,but really don't now the species.
Petro

 

[Slimy2]

It looks like the eggs are in strands in the first picture, so I believe they are Bufo(toad eggs). If they are Bufo then they are American toad eggs. From maps I have looked at Fowler's toads live just below Maine. No other Bufo that I know of lives in Maine.