# Frogs/Toads trapped in solid rock for hundreds of years? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 12, 2002, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301 "2002-12-12T19:05:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Janx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Janx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Janx)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/1 "2002-12-12T19:05:37Z")
From: [http://www.subversiveelement.com/UniqueEntombedAnimals.html](http://www.subversiveelement.com/UniqueEntombedAnimals.html) > [@](#): > > There are many cases of entombed animals being liberated from solid rock and sometimes even coal. In June 1851 well diggers at Blois, France split open a large flint rock and were startled to find a live toad inside. Another toad was inavertently freed from a solid lump of ore broken up by miners in Derby England, in 1852. And a Scientific American article in 1853 reported the discovery of a horned lizard alive in a block of stone in New Mexico, USA. I had seen this before, I just want to know how could this be? If I were to take a toad and toss it into a bucket of concrete, let it sit for, say, 50 years would the toad survive? I don’t think so. So what could account for this stuff? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/2 "2002-12-12T19:14:06Z")
There was a story circulating that when they were breaking up a streetcorner in downtown Ft. Worth several years back, a live horney toad jumped out of the rubble. Someone claimed to have been there when it was originally poured and that they remembered the toad jumping in. Has all the earmarks of a UL, but… ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/3 "2002-12-12T19:26:24Z")
Well, there has been [one](http://www.toonopedia.com/michigan.htm) reliable sighting.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/4 "2002-12-12T19:28:40Z")
Extremely partial answer, IANAamphibiologist. It’s my understanding that most amphibians get through the winter months by burrowing into the mud at the bottom of their local lake and hibernating. Now, over many years, that mud can turn to stone, and if the frog happened not to get out in the meantime, he’d still be there. How long a frog can survive in this state, I do not know, but I’d be surprised if a live frog were ever found in anything solider than mudstone (mudstone is like shale that isn’t shale yet: It looks the same, but it has the consistency of damp, unfired clay, and it’s soft enough that you can leave thumbprints in it). ---
**Author:** ![Bob55](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Bob55](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob55)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/5 "2002-12-12T19:31:56Z")
I once saw an explanation of this - little frogs would crawl into tight places, then grow into big frogs that couldn’t escape, living off of bugs that strolled by. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/6 "2002-12-12T19:44:00Z")
I suspect that most of these tales are just that - tall tales. I would be especially suspecious of anything from the 1850s. Some spadefoot toads and other amphibians can live in a dormant state underground for months or even years while they wait for rains. However, they would not be found in any really solid rock, and I doubt very much they could last over a period of decades. The most famous event of this kind involves [Old Rip](http://www.rogerknapp.com/inspire/toad.htm), who was a horned toad (a kind of lizard), not a real toad. Personally, I smell hoax with this account, although it may not be entirely outside the bounds of possibility if insects were able to enter the chamber. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/7 "2002-12-12T19:49:54Z")
In fact, the Fort Worth story, UL or not, is generally believed to have inspired the 1955 Chuck Jones cartoon. The incident with “Old Rip” supposedly ocurred in 1928: [http://www.exithere.net/daytripping/archive/rip.html](http://www.exithere.net/daytripping/archive/rip.html) The veracity of a blurb concerning a roadside attraction is questionable, of course. ---
**Author:** ![evilhanz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba8739/32.png) [@evilhanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/evilhanz)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/8 "2002-12-12T20:16:53Z")
I suspsect that people are misinterpreting a very normal amphibian behavior. In arid or cold conditions amphibians burrow into the ground, even hard ground, and enter a state similar to mammalian hibernation. Their tunnel entrances may be covered up during that time or go unnoticed. In the southwest dirt can harden up so much with lack of moisture that it feels much like soft rock. Someone comes along with a shovel before the animal has dug itself out and it appears as though the critter has emerged from solid earth! I did this a month or two ago. I was digging up some hard packed earth near the garden in my backyard when I noticed what appeared to be a grey, mummified toad. It was very much alive, if a little groggy. It had burrowed into dirt that was probably muddy at the end of summer and hardened up after the first frost. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/9 "2002-12-12T22:58:06Z")
There’s certainly no way that an animal could become enveloped in flint and survive; it is an igneous rock. There is one such story where it is claimed that the animal released from the rock was a pterodactyl! When you break up a solid object that contains a void, it is quite difficult to ascertain whether the void was really fully enclosed and sealed, or whether there was a small opening. I believe this phenomenon can be attributed variously to: [list][li]Animals encased in (comparatively)recently hardened mud.[/li][li]Animals that have entered a void through a small opening and have grown too big to leave, surviving on passing insects.[/li]Animals that have entered a void through a fairly large opening that simply isn’t easy to see once the object is broken up. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2002, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/10 "2002-12-12T23:10:03Z")
Flint (chert) actually is sedimentary, but your point is still valid. ---
**Author:** ![Janx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Janx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Janx)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/11 "2002-12-13T16:53:16Z")
\*\* lieu \*\* wrote > [@](#): > > Flint (chert) actually is sedimentary, but your point is still valid. I forget the difference, I can see this with a sedimentary type of rock and the theory of an opening that that gets destroyed when the rock is cracked is seductive, but how often would a toad need to eat in order to survive like that? I wonder how long a hibernating toad would last embedded in the dirt of a drought stricken area. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2002, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/12 "2002-12-13T17:36:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by yabob \* > \*\*In fact, the Fort Worth story, UL or not, is generally believed to have inspired the 1955 Chuck Jones cartoon. The incident with “Old Rip” supposedly ocurred in 1928: > > [http://www.exithere.net/daytripping/archive/rip.html](http://www.exithere.net/daytripping/archive/rip.html) > The veracity of a blurb concerning a roadside attraction is questionable, of course. \*\* Eastland, actually. Not too far from my hometown. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/13 "2002-12-14T00:49:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lieu \* > \*\*Flint (chert) actually is sedimentary, but your point is still valid. \*\* Well, there’s a nodule of ignorance fought and defeated; I had always assumed it was igneous because of it’s glasslike brittle nature. Thanks for that one. ---
**Author:** ![Hrdygrdymn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/77aa72/32.png) [@Hrdygrdymn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hrdygrdymn)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2002, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/14 "2002-12-14T04:29:03Z")
Not only is flint sedimentary, it is dense and fine grained, plus it forms as a chemical/biogenic nodule over a very long period of time and has very sharp conchoidal fracture. IF there was a frog in flint, it must have been living for thousands of years (at the bottom of a salty ocean, no less) without any oxygen at all as dissolved silica precipitated around it. Then it sat for perhaps millions of years until the sea floor sediments reached the land’s surface where it was broken open - without injury - from its glassy encasement. IF I were going to perpetuate a hoax about frogs in rocks and knew nothing about geology, flint would be a good choice. It generally appears as roundish nodules with a hard, thin white shell - much like an egg. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2002, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/frogs-toads-trapped-in-solid-rock-for-hundreds-of-years/142301/15 "2002-12-15T14:53:32Z")
ie: The Ivory Toad of Shanghai’d.