I have been remiss in posting updates on the various animals I tried to raise this past year. This is what I believe is the first frog to fully metamorphose from the eggs I received from a friend back in May. I seem to be missing 2 individuals out of 16 that hatched. Whether they died (I found no evidence of this) or escaped from the aquarium (I have seen trails of duckweed on the rim of the aquarium), I can merely guess. One only had 3 legs at some point, and I'm not sure if this is it with a fully grown 4th front right leg. I'm surprised at how small the frogs are compared to the relatively beefy tadpoles. This tiny one had actually lost its tail completely a week or so ago. I've been so preoccupied with other things that I haven't kept as good of track on the development as I would like. I'll have to look through e-mails to get some of the developmental dates correct.
ps 12/11/11 - It's nice to see other nature bloggers post about their own tadpole rearing experiences. So far, Julie Zickefoose is the only one I've seen.
pss 12/15/11 - I'm not sure if I should be repulsed or fascinated... I noticed this morning that a tadpole died, and the others are huddled around it and feeding like a pack of carnivores or scavengers.
ps 12/11/11 - It's nice to see other nature bloggers post about their own tadpole rearing experiences. So far, Julie Zickefoose is the only one I've seen.
pss 12/15/11 - I'm not sure if I should be repulsed or fascinated... I noticed this morning that a tadpole died, and the others are huddled around it and feeding like a pack of carnivores or scavengers.
2 comments:
Wow!!!!!!! Do you think the three legs were a mutation? Maybe the fourth leg was just tucked underneath?
Maybe a mutation; I honestly don't know. This little froglet was very obvious, and I never noticed more than one. However, I still can't account for the 2 missing tadpoles. The metamorphosis process definitely took longer than published, by more than twice the time! You may be right in that I may have had too many tadpoles with their hormones for such little amount of water (5 gallons is not a lot).
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