In a shallow pool – tinted brown by tannin from rotting leaves – a gang of male common frogs were poised for action. ‘As soon as a female jumped in,’ says Cyril, ‘they went crazy, desperate to be the lucky one’. As light shone through the spheres of spawn, a familiar scene transformed into an alien world.
Powered by muscular limbs and webbed hind feet, males will fight to clasp a female. The lucky male will hang on using dark pads on its thumbs until she releases up to 2,000 jelly-cased eggs to be fertilised. Emerging tadpoles metamorphosise into froglets over 10–15 weeks developing lungs to breathe air.
France
Cyril has been a professional photographer for 20 years. His first encounter with the Borneo orang-utan influenced him to give pride of place to primates in his work. He now also focuses on amphibians such as frogs jumping on snow in the Alps, giant salamanders in Japan and goliath frogs in Cameroon. He also enjoys working on wildlife around his home, trying to make exotic, very common species.
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