Albino wood frog tads!

[Zach]

I was dip netting a pond today, and as expected I pulled up about 50 wood frog tadpoles. I put them in a container to get a closer look at them and I noticed one of them was white! I'm actually not sure if it is technically an albino because they eyes don't look red. I caught one more and saw two more. I'll upload some pics later. Has anyone else found albinos or any other color mutations in the wild or know how rare this is?

[Socrates]

Well it's not impossible, Albino ism is possible in any vertebrate animal. All it is is a lacking of pigmentation due to a genetic mutation and/or missing a certain gene, or a recessive trait. So it is possible, its just that in the wild even if one does emerge those individuals do not last long. Because for one they are more sensitive to the environment, easily picked off by predators (or scene by potential prey), or selected against by other individuals of their species.

[Zach]

Yea i was just so surprised that they made it this far.

[Socrates]

O very cool, ya those could very well be albinos. Nice.

[AllAlaskan]

Wow your are so big already Me and my almost 5 year old son walked down to our pond to find the pond almost gone! We have been having a dry spring (yes spring Leaves just came out up here in South Central Alaska lol) and the pond which normally is quite big was almost gone. There were Frog eggs EVERY WHERE! Many of which were starting to hatch out already so me and my son grabbed to hand fulls (not many compared to what was there) and put them in a mason jar and headed home. We are hoping many will mature to frogs and then get to let them go before fall.

I havnt seen any so far though that are white like the ones you have there! Those are pretty cool I would love to find some Albino Wood Frog Tadpoles. I hope they mature fully for you.

[Zach]

They are now froglets