A Ranidaphobic's Encounter with a Sciophobic

Last night I was taking a stroll after dinner and all of a sudden a frog limped in front of me, it freaked the hell out of me! I am a born Ranidphobic! Damn scared of these jumping beasts, in fact I am Herpetophobic, and stay away from all those creepy things! I can't stand them! Who knows when they stick their tongue out and gulp you in! 

            But tomorrow something surprised me; when I tried dodging it and in doing so my shadow fell on it, that freaked it out. It started jumping like hell! As if I put it on fire! I got curious, what made it react that way? Was it my movement? Was it my proximity? Or was it related in anyway just to my shadow?

            What can be better for a prey than to find the predator's weaknesses? So, I began. The first step was so see if the frog gets scared by any movement. Standing at a safe distance of around 4 feet, I started waving my hand, raising it upwards; it didn't buzz. I pointed my hand towards it and waved; still it didn't buzz.

            So, it's not noticing my hand movements as threat; I thought, how about acting to pick up a stone and throw which makes the dogs run away? It didn't buzz.

            So, it's not movements that make it scared. So what next, sound? I clapped! Not hard; didn't want all the guards to shower questions on me; just loud enough. I was sure it will jump, but again it surprised me; it didn't buzz!

            Not even sounds made it scared. Will proximity do? I started moving closer to it from 4 feet to 1.5 feet, from an angle, not head on. It was much closer than the distance I was from it, when my shadow fell on it which was around 3 feet. Still it didn't buzz!

            Was it something about just the shadow? I moved backward. 2 feet! 3 feet! 4 feet! 5 feet! 6 feet! I raised my hand and that increased the length of my shadow to 6 feet, and I moved laterally so that my shadow will slowly approach the frog.

            And, just when my shadow was about to engulf the frog, it went berserk! It jumped here and there! Went under the cable wires, out it came from the other side, tried jumping over the wall! In a while it calmed down.

            And I tried again, moving away couple of feet more, raising hands and holding a stick high above; its shadow casting 7 feet; in search for the ultimate weapon, I moved the shadow again towards my predator.

            The frenzy started again! It popped out! It dug down! It squeaked and squealed! I jumped back too, just to make sure I don't come in the pandemonium's radius. But its twitching didn't stop. And finally, in its Brownian movement, it got sucked into a near by pit, a dark pit where one can only fall in but never escape out.

            What's wrong with my predator? Is it fearful of shadows? Was it Sciophobic? It didn't care if I made noise, not even when I went close. But when I went far but cast my shadow on it, it goes mad, as mad as **!  So, I have done it! I have found the ultimate weapon to defend mankind from the deadly sticky tongues of the mighty Frogs!

            I continued my stroll, this time with a little bounce in my legs, calling friends and announcing the great discovery I have made. Alas! Something?s wrong with the theory! Or... as it was not a theoretical derivation but one based on observation, shall I say... something's wrong with the observations!

            Flash Back! It squeaked and squealed! I jumped back too! But what I thought to be twitching was not so; let's just zoom in and have a macro view.

            "What the hell is this guy upto!  Tur! Tur! Lemme find a way out, else this guy will roast me and make me his dinner, can't he afford a pizza? Looking for free meal! Tur! Tur!"

             It starts looking left, and  then right, top and then bottom, it took a jump ahead and again looked around.

            "There it is! This pit gonna keep the hungry guy away from me! Thank god he got a tummy bigger than this pit's opening; else he might have jumped in with me! Good Bye Bad Guy! Tur!"

And it jumps in the pit.