When water buffalo make a home for themselves in abandoned spaces, they can bring with them a rich array of frogs, bats and plant life. Each autumn, a

Giant 'living tractors' are bringing nature back to post-industrial wastelands

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2024-08-29 10:00:03

When water buffalo make a home for themselves in abandoned spaces, they can bring with them a rich array of frogs, bats and plant life.

Each autumn, as tadpoles outgrow their tails, the Kizilirmak Delta on Turkey's Black Sea erupts into chaotic commotion with the emergence of marsh frogs. While the fist-sized frogs are at home in the delta's wetlands, dozens can be seen hopping out of the muddy waters to exploit one particularly strange and unusually lively hunting ground.

Climbing up a hillside of thick fur, the frogs encounter terrain that's warm underfoot and an atmosphere that buzzes with flies. But there are risks to foraging here. The surface beneath their webbed feet twitches and shakes, and the entire floor is prone to lurching unpredictably through the air and collapsing into the mud.

This moving mountain of brawn and bugs is the muscular back of a massive water buffalo. On each of these giants roaming the delta, as many as 20 frogs or more can be found hitching a ride to their next meal.