Formerly Known as Tadpoles

Quite a change from the tadpoles they came from. Surprisingly long back toes.



I'm pretty sure these came from the tadpoles I released since I had never seen frogs in this pond previously. I spotted about half a dozen and I'm assuming there are more hiding that I didn't see. Nice to know some of them have made it this far. It'll be interested to see if they survive the winter and are around next spring.

Tadpoles to Frogs

After a long period of not many changes (apart from growing in size), the tadpoles are again developing rapidly, first growing back legs, then front legs (arms?), their mouths changing completely, and finally emerging from the water. Their tails gradually shrink during this time and they develop the green color and pattern that is recognizably a Northern Leopard Frog (I wasn't sure what kind of eggs I had found, but I suspected this type of frog since it's the most common around here.)



Since they should now be eating insects which I can't easily supply, I've been releasing them as they get to this stage. The tadpoles I previously released have also metamorphosed into frogs, although it's hard to get much of a look at them since they leap into the water and hide when you approach.

Tadpoles Grow Legs

I haven't posted any pictures of the tadpoles for a while. Apart from getting bigger and developing more color and shape, they've been fairly static. But they've finally started to grow legs. They went from egg to tadpole so fast that I thought their whole development would be faster but they've stayed in the tadpole stage longer than I expected. (I released several batches of them as they grew and the aquarium got too crowded.)

These aren't great pictures - between lighting, reflections, focus, and moving targets it's tricky. But they suffice to show what's happening.





You can click on the pictures to get a larger view. As you can see, there's quite a lot of variation in size and stage of development, even though they're all from the same batch of eggs.

It's interesting to compare these pictures to the first batch.

Now I'm waiting for the arms to show up :-)

PS. The next day I see one of the tadpoles has arms! Either they emerged overnight, or else that tadpole had been hiding. I'll try for some pictures once a few more of them develop arms. I'm not sure when they transition to breathing air, but I added a ramp so they can get out of the water when they need to.

PPS. What does this have to do with "adventure"? To me, nature is a big and integral part of adventure. And an appreciation and knowledge of nature enhances our adventures.

Tadpole Progression

When I paddled down Beaver Creek on Saturday I explored a cut off oxbow of the creek and discovered some frogs eggs. It was a mass about the size of a grapefruit floating in some weeds. It seemed too large to be produced by a single frog. I decided to take a small number of the eggs to observe them developing. Here is the progression over about 3 days:





I got a lot more tadpoles than I had expected. Depending how big they get the tank may not be big enough for them so I may have to return some. From research on the internet I have offered them some goldfish food. So far they don't seem to be eating. The other recommendation was to boil lettuce to give them. When I was a kid I used to catch tadpoles and watch them develop into frogs (or toads) but I never found any eggs.