Can you tell the species from the tads?

[TadpolesRUs]

Can you tell the species of a frog from its tadpoles? Im 99.9% sure its just common british frogs, but we have tadpoles, and im interested in keeping one of the, and building a pong like tank and everything, im not sure.

[Paul Rust]

Yes you can however, it is extremely difficult. Here are some examples of what you need to determine.

Vent location.
Eye placement.
Size range.
Tail fin patterns.
Body colorations.
Stomach and throat pigment.
Number of rows of teeth.

And many can be so close that a 50% identification is the closest you can get with tadpoles. Your best bet is to guess what you think it is and look up the tadpole for that species and compare it. To know for sure keep it until it morphs. Sorry but that is the best I can do for you. Like I said, they are difficult to identify. Good luck.

[BEETLE]

Hi. If you have tadpoles in the UK and they are this years you can be pretty sure they are common frogs, I have some newt tadpoles that overwintered from last year but they look very different. Did you see the spawn? The different frogs and toads in the UK lay their spawn in different ways and I have seen the clumps of frog spawn this year but have not seen the strings of toad spawn yet, though I haven't looked since before the last couple of warm days.
Also where you are in the UK can be used to rule out any introduced species.

[Paul Rust]

Beetle has some good advice here.

[John]

The two most likely candidates are the Common Frog (Rana temporaria) and the Common Toad (Bufo bufo). Common Toad tadpoles are very distinctive because they are usually almost black in colouration. Common Frogs are more of a brown, with visible speckles, if you have a good eye.