Tadpole development

All winter long, I struggle for blogging material. Not much shaking. Then spring hits, and I have so much to write and no time to do it. Hence the late post this week.

Before our tragedy with the chickens, you may recall that I witnessed the mating frenzy of the American toad. That was two weeks ago on Sunday. For the next two days, I deeply regretted not bringing in some eggs for observation. I go through the whole process in Ch. 43, and here I was passing up an opportunity to observe it firsthand. Tuesday night, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I found a half gallon mason jar in the root cellar, put on my Wellies, and set out.

There was not a toad in sight. Really? All over in a few days? Maybe even one day. I didn’t pay enough attention to the sounds. For a moment, I was afraid I would not even be able to find any eggs. As my eyes adjusted to looking at and in the water, I noticed masses of slimy chains of eggs gathered around the emergent grasses. I scooped up a handful and put it in a jar that I filled with water from the “fluddle” (a word I just learned from an article on chorus frogs meaning “puddle in a flooded field”).

There must be plenty of chorus frog tadpoles in the fluddle as well, because there were two in the jar.

A chorus frog tadpole with the toad egg mass, Tuesday afternoon

I had already missed the first several divisions of the eggs. They were no longer round, suggesting that the body plan was already starting to take shape.

Toad embryos already taking on their body plan, Tuesday afternoon

The next morning, some of the tadpoles had wriggled free of the slime casing.

Wednesday morning: A few embryos on the top of the egg mass

Wednesday afternoon, I had to stop at Walmart on the way home for an air pump, tubing, and an air stone. There was no way to get algae going fast enough to provide oxygen for all the babies. $10.73. Not too bad for research equipment. When I got home, more tadpoles were lying on top of the egg mass.

Wednesday afternoon: more embryos have emerged

Thursday morning, the tadpole embryos were standing at attention.

Thursday morning: Standing at attention

They were about the same in the afternoon.

Thursday afternoon

They started somehow climbing up and sticking to the glass Friday morning. They didn't swim much.

Friday morning: Clinging to the glass

They were very thin and looked exactly like the drawing in Ch. 43 for late gastrulation, just about the time that the digestive tract punches through at the mouth. I did think there would be more of a yolk sac in their little bellies. You may be wondering what the cheesecloth over the top is for. That is because there are mosquito larva in the water. Also daphnia and cyclops.

Friday morning close up. Seriously, what is sticking them to the glass?

Friday afternoon, there were close to a hundred. I counted up to 80 and gave up. They were swimming more now

Holy smoke! Look at them all!

Saturday was a busy day (more later); no time for pictures. I went out to the fluddle to get a handful of muck off the bottom to provide algae, bacteria, and whatever else tadpoles eat off the bottom. There are no true water plants in our vernal pond. There are grasses in various stages of living or rotting. Over the next several days, the tadpoles stripped them down to the veins.

Thus nourished, the tadpoles ballooned into their round shapes.

Sunday morning

I got a good picture of the chorus frog tadpole with three toad tadpoles Monday afternoon.

Chorus tadpole, lower left, with three toad tadpoles

Obviously, I couldn’t keep all hundred. I had to thin the herd. 

Tuesday, April 25: One week in captivity

Last Tuesday (April 25) was a lovely warm day. I would be able to release the surplus without cold shocking them. I picked out 7 toad tadpoles and the two chorus tadpoles and put them in a little container. Note the abundance of poop on the bottom. They were in there maybe 10 minutes. Pretty sure tadpoles poop continuously. It stands to reason that they must eat continuously also.

The keepers

While the captives were pooping, I took the jar out to the fluddle to liberate the extra tadpoles and fill the jar with fresh water and more muck and grass. And I brought in another tadpole. Boy, there must be a lot of tadpoles in that water. And yet, I never see them when I’m walking through.

Just one more thing. Terry and I, like any two people who share living space, have our disagreements, but I just gotta love a guy who doesn’t think there is anything weird about having a mason jar full of tadpoles on the kitchen counter.