Twitter Is Loving This Surprise Lettuce Frog Named Tony
Often, the food you pick up at your local grocery store has to take quite a journey before you're able to pluck it off the shelves and place it in your grocery cart or basket. And sometimes along the way, a critter decides to hitch a ride. You may have heard horror stories about produce carrying home a creepy crawly insect of some sort, but a recent shopper found something a bit more adorable in his package of lettuce — and the story has a surprising ending.
On December 20, recording artist, actor, author, and songwriter Simon Curtis shared a photo on Twitter showing that he found an unexpected guest in his clamshell package of romaine lettuce: A small green frog. He followed up the snap with a few additional tweets showing the frog's progress, including several videos that show the frog hopping around in the lettuce packaging while Curtis tried to figure out exactly how to care for the little creature.
In the tweets that followed, Curtis ended up speaking to an expert at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation to confirm that his new friend, who he named Tony, was a green tree frog, and finding some appropriate food for Tony to munch on. Curtis even shared an adorable clip proving that Tony was a people-friendly frog who had no issue with being scooped up and held.
An escape artist -- and the heartwarming conclusion
Though Curtis tried to make Tony's lettuce enclosure comfortable, even crafting a mini bath out of a mason jar lid, the clamshell packaging proved less than secure. Curtis documented as Tony kept escaping and exploring the house, eventually traveling from tops of doors to dust-covered nooks to the shower. So, Curtis opted to get the curious frog a small terrarium (via Today).
Curtis took to Twitter to get the public's opinion about whether he should continue caring for Tony and turn him from a lettuce interloper into a beloved pet, or whether he should release the tiny frog into the wild when the temperature permitted. The simple question got over 87,000 responses from fans invested in the viral story, and nearly 58% of voters thought that Curtis should keep Tony.
Countless individuals shared their thoughts and opinions in the comments section, with many weighing in with their own experiences owning frogs, and some wondering whether Tony was too far from home to survive successfully in Curtis's corner of the world. In a tweet shared a few days after his initial discovery, Curtis revealed that after consulting with a few additional experts, he had made the decision to keep Tony as a pet. He shared the news with a close-up snap of the adorable creature, along with a photo of himself as a child with a plush frog by his side.