Excuse me, aren't you meant to be a tadpole first..?

[Bonox]

Hi folks, I relined an old stone above ground pond a while back, and have had various frogs come and go so far, and now I have lots of tadpoles of varying sizes. I live in a cool climate with a creek nearby, all the frogs I see around here are small native ones, as in no bullfrogs, tree frogs etc., but there is a lot of variety when I look closely. I remember the tadpole process from when I was a kid, the round tadpole gets bigger, legs develop, the tail disappears, head form etc.


However today I was adjusting a few rocks (the lining wraps around timber poles, with and extra strip of lining between the top layer of rocks and the main lining, makes a few flaps here and there), anyway I disturbed a desert-camo coloured frog which shot off into the middle of the pond, then I see what looks like a perfectly formed tiny dark coloured frog, this whole frog was smaller than the ‘abdomen’ section of my medium-ish tadpoles, I looked under the flap, a whole bunch of them were there and they scattered, then the (I assume) parent frog actually swam back and confronted me, I reached down and touched it’s nose but it stood it’s..erm, water. These frogs had no tail, no tadpole features at all, back legs already formed etc., just a chubbier version of a developed frog, in a tiny scale, like most species babies.


As I carefully put things back as they were, I thought...”That’s not how it works is it?

[irThumper]

I hope someone replies to this who's in the know, because that is fascinating!

[deranged chipmunk]

Can you get a pic of any of them?


Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world ~ Nelson Mandela

[Thevacantface]

One of the only ones I've heard of that won't have tadpoles is the gastric brooding frog, which is considered extinct, but was native to parts of Australia until some 20 years ago. Look up the frog, and if it looks the same, get your country's nature conservancy out there immediately because you could be responsible for the rediscovery of a species.

[irThumper]

One of the only ones I've heard of that won't have tadpoles is the gastric brooding frog, which is considered extinct, but was native to parts of Australia until some 20 years ago. Look up the frog, and if it looks the same, get your country's nature conservancy out there immediately because you could be responsible for the rediscovery of a species.

That would be AWESOME!

There's some pics at these links...


https://backyardzoologist.wordpress....rooding-frogs/

Recently Extinct Animals - Species Info - Northern Gastric-brooding Frog

http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/201309/...5_14940493.jpg

[Bonox]

here's one of the little guys, just a small species I guess, no big mystery, just that nearly all the tadpoles are much bigger than this, and they aren't showing any visible signs of change yet.

(that silver key is a small window key btw)

[irThumper]

Wow, still though, that is mega small!

[Bonox]

hi Thumper, glad you agree!, as a frog and pond newb I was unsure if this was unusual or not, in any case.. big fat tadpoles and tiny little frogs, it's all good. There are new lily pads and I've made a nice smooth rock island with shade, so I'm looking forward to see what happens.

I love the pics of your beautiful guys, and I'm sorry about your loss of sHEila, that is the sweetest face.

[irThumper]

Aw, thanks ^_^ sHEila was an awesome little guy... the only one of my froggles who would "converse" with me. I really miss that!

Would love to see more pics of your pond project as you go along! We, unfortunately, live in a small apartment and are very limited to what we can do outside here, otherwise I'd love to have a nice pond myself ^_^ We threw a "micro-eco habitiat" together in front of our place last year to help benefit the local tree frogs, who were suffering from an unexpected heat wave. They appreciated it! ^_^



(Tip four pics taken in Sept at the end of summer; bottom two were in July).