On a rubber estate near Sungei Siput, 100miles northeast of Kuala Lumpur, about 50 frogs began furiously hopping around and biting one another. Soon 3,000 frogs joined the bloody fray. For two days the battle raged. When it was over, the swampy battlefield was littered with the torn bodies of 700 frogs.
Wars of the frogs are not uncommon in Malaysia, and zoologists theorize that they are battles for mating grounds. To superstitious Malaysians, however, they are portents of national disaster. Soon after a particularly vicious frog war in the early 1940s, the Japanese invaded and occupied Malaya. The country's...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
