Tadpoles!!!!!

[Loritx]

Was a gloomy dreary day till I went out to feed my fish!  As I was watching my fish 'not' eat thier food.....I looked down and saw something moving in the water!!  Hmmm maybe one of the 9 tadpoles my husband and grandsons caught a month ago were still alive!!    But wait, shouldnt they be much larger by now....hmmm.....oh look there are over a hundred just on the shelf alone!!!!!!  And many more swimming arround!!!   Now I am sure there were no mommy or daddy frogs in the pond???  New pond, I am out there constantly moving and rearranging the plants, not much for larger frogs to hide in yet!!  So did they come in on one of my many new plants, or in the small amount of wild pond water the other tadpoles were in??  And I thought my fish were on a hungerstrike due to a change in food - I guess it was a big change!!!

Anyway with the sun not shineing today I was able to get a good picture of the ones on the shelf!!

[Pa Nancy]

Hard to tell in the pic,but those look like toad tadpoles to me. Afraid to tell ya,but "something" was in your pond. Toads don't live in water, just breed. They do their thing and leave.

Fish don't like toad tadpoles, they taste yucky.

[Julles]

My crop of tadpoles is just about gone, now.  But I lay in bed after yesterday's storm and heard the toads calling last night.  So I expect we may have more eggs laid in the pond.  I wouldn't mind a bit!

Pa Nancy, how do you tell the difference between frog and toad tadpoles? ??    I have some very small tadpoles among my larger ones, and I'm wondering if they are perhaps tree frog tadpoles, or just "late bloomer" toads.

[Loritx]

Must be Toad Tadpoles then. I have not seen a frog or toad anywhere in my yard this year.  Still its nice that my pond is Alive!!!  These are very small 1/4 inch long including tails right now!!  At least its fun to watch and my grandsons will have something to do, other than try to come up with ways to bother the fish!!!  The 8 yr old likes to pretend to feed them and watch them hunt for the nonexistant food!!   Boys come up with the strangest things to do!!

[Pa Nancy]

My crop of tadpoles is just about gone, now.  But I lay in bed after yesterday's storm and heard the toads calling last night.  So I expect we may have more eggs laid in the pond.  I wouldn't mind a bit!

Pa Nancy, how do you tell the difference between frog and toad tadpoles? ??    I have some very small tadpoles among my larger ones, and I'm wondering if they are perhaps tree frog tadpoles, or just "late bloomer" toads.

I don't know anything about Tree Frogs, or Leopard Frogs. I have Bull Frogs and Toads. I believe the BF's are larger, and are brownish/greenish.  Where the Toads are tiny black.

[thepitclub]

Those look like "toad-poles". We have a marshy bog not to far behind or house, and we were OVERUN with tiny toads this week. Kinda cute, but you have to watch everywhere you step-yikes.... 

Toad tadpoles are black, stay small and you end up with teeny tiny toads (not much bigger than the tadpoles; frog tadpoles (the ones around here anyway) are green/brown and grow bigger and bigger untill they develop into small frogs.
 Even though we have lots of tree frogs, wood frogs, etc. around here, I am not sure what those tadpoles look like.
Maybe you could capture a few of each and contain them until they mature. I'd love to see pics of that! 

[miguynmkoi]

Sadly  :'(, for the tree frog tadpoles I have the fishies and turtles chow down on them after a short chase.  Free Food 

[Loritx]

I will be curiously watching these as the grow and mature.  Hopefully will get a photo of the adult!!  These seem to be in the majority of the tadpoles found in the wild ponds and streams near here.  Now when we lived in the other house a few blocks from here there was a wild pond a few houses down and our backyard was HOPPING with mid size Toads!  The grandsons were 5-6 at the time and had a ball catching them in the evenings!!  There is a watershed type creek a block down the road - so these Toads traveled a ways to find my pond, in my fully (to the ground) fenced yard.  I know that they couldnt have been looking too hard for water as it has not stopped raining long enought here for the natural water to dry up!