A boy who raised a tadpole into becoming a frog could only watch as his efforts to release his little green friend back into the wild went horribly wrong. Take a look at the heart-wrenching moment below:
This is normally a tale as old as time which usually goes: child finds animal, child raises animal, and then child releases animal back into the wild with a heartbreaking goodbye.
Usually, this story either ends with the big farewell as the animal sets off on its new life or the pair suddenly reunite years later with the animal recognising the human.
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Sadly for the boy who released his pet frog after raising it all the way from being a little tadpole, his own story ended nothing like that.
It all started so well, with the boy and his father by the side of a river near the Chinese city of Dalian where they lived.
They'd brought the little green frog to the river as they'd decided to release it when they thought it was big enough to survive by itself.
Unfortunately, they should have waited a little while longer.
Enjoying the big farewell moment, the father and son prised open the container they'd been keeping the frog in and tipped it into the river.
Hopping into the river with a little splash, it seemed as though that was that for the frog as it had been returned to its natural habitat where it could swim around and eat as many flies as it wanted.
It could even have one day joined the amphibian army of that guy on TikTok who raised more than a million tadpoles into his very own army of frogs.
Sadly, tragedy struck mere seconds into the frog's new life of freedom as it was almost immediately gobbled whole by a fish which had been swimming in the river.
Powerless to do anything to save their frog, the father and son could only watch helplessly as mother nature proved herself to be a cruel mistress once again.
Had the frog been bigger, like this absolutely ribbeting unit the size of a human baby, there's no chance the fish would have been able to gobble it up almost immediately.
Still, being raised in a loving home and eaten by another wildlife creature is arguably a better existence than the poor frog that ended up as an unexpected side dish in a woman's salad.
If you want a happy ending to this story you can always watch the video and stop it a couple of seconds after the frog hops into the water.
Do that and you can pretend the cute little amphibian wasn't killed by a random fish almost immediately afterwards, but deep down you'll still know what happened to that sweet little frog.
LADbible could not contact the fish for comment, but we are sure it is a monstrous creature made of pure concentrated evil.
Joe Harker