Endangered gopher frogs get a break this year Mississippi gopher frogs breed only in ponds so shallow they dry up in summer. Hot, dry springs have stranded tadpoles every year since 1998, when 2,488 froglets hopped out of Glen's Pond in coastal Harrison County, Miss. The pond held water longer this year. And 181 tadpoles survived a deadly parasite, made it through metamorphosis and headed into the surrounding DeSoto National Forest. Biologists saved seven generations. They wash some eggs in well water, apparently removing the parasite, hatch them in a lab and put the tadpoles in screen-covered outdoor tanks. Scientists believe fewer than 100 mature adults live in the wild. Five zoos - in Detroit, New Orleans, Memphis, Miami and Omaha, Neb. - have 75 more frogs. Mississippi gopher frogs once lived in longleaf pine forests from western Alabama to southeast Louisiana. Timbering all but eradicated those forests. The frogs live underground, in stump holes and burrows dug by other animals. They have other oddities. Their breeding call sounds like snoring....Sounds like some women I've known. Hope they are endangered too.