Metamorphosis

We took the above ground pool that was buried halfway in the ground out of our backyard. We plan to put a pond in the resulting cavity in our yard. May rains soon filled the hole with stagnant water. The male toads it attracted sang so loudly at night we could hardly sleep. "GRRRBLAAAAAAAHHHHH!" they screamed. Apparently, the females could not resist, because days later, tadpoles appeared, shimmering away from our shadows.


The tadpoles here in the pond are quite small, you may need to click on the image to appreciate them at all.

"If you want to save any of those tadpoles, you'd better hurry up," Anthony warned. The kids and I went down in our Wellington boots, and they scooped up tons of tadpoles with paper cups. Anthony was right -- the next day the "pond" was dry and the polliwogs were dessicated.

We fed the larval amphibians frozen spinach, and they slowly grew. They grew faster when exposed to UV light and warming June temperatures. When I came back from my trip, I could see legs!

I knew that once legs appeared, their digestive systems amazingly change from the long, fermentation mazes of herbivores to the short, simple tracts of protein eaters. Also, as their gills turned to lungs, they would need a way to get out of the water. Anna and I added sunning rocks.


Close up of tadpoles.


This morning, the metamorphosis for one pollywog was complete. A New Toad!