KANAZAWA, Ishikawa Pref. (Kyodo) About 70 more dead tadpoles have been found in Ishikawa Prefecture, local officials said Friday, as the mystery over how they came to be in areas with no paddy fields or other habitats continues.
The latest findings, Thursday afternoon, were in the cities of Nanao and Wajima. More than 100 dead tadpoles were found in Nanao and Hakusan last week and tiny dead fish were found Tuesday in the town of Nakanoto.
Two dead tadpoles were found shortly after 1 p.m. Thursday by Mayumi Tsuiki, 38, a Nanao city official, on the roof and door of a car in her home's parking lot.
She thought they might have been dropped by birds as there were also bird droppings in the area.
In Wajima, two piles of about 70 dead tadpoles were found around 3 p.m. Thursday by liquor shop owner Nobutake Takada, 67, on a bridge walkway.
Masafumi Matsui, a professor at Kyoto University's graduate school of human and environmental studies who specializes in amphibians, said: "It is hard to comment without actually seeing these tadpoles . . . but considering the circumstances reported by the media, someone could be pulling a prank."
People have speculated the tadpoles might have fallen from the sky after being sucked up by waterspouts or carried by birds. But there have been no reports of strong winds, and ornithologists dispute the bird theory.