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overwintering frog tadpoles |
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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Posted: 21 Feb 2016 at 2:25pm |
When I was a kid you read that any late developing anuran tadpoles wouldn't survive the winter, unlike newt larvae. Recently I think people have found more and more late taddies that are making it to the following spring; a pond near to me has dozens that have made it, mostly at the hind limb stage, like this one from today:
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Liz Heard
Senior Member Joined: 27 Apr 2010 Location: South West Status: Offline Points: 1429 |
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Hi Will,
I've had overwintering tads in my ponds several times but, have noticed that development was very slow and significant numbers had deformities to their legs come spring and didn't make it. Although 'new' tadpoles in the same pond were normal. Ben |
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Caleb
Senior Member Joined: 11 Apr 2011 Status: Offline Points: 660 |
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Would be interesting to see if they are able to metamorphose fully.
It is possible for anuran tadpoles to be neotenous- this apparently results in overgrown tadpoles (usually at the early hind-limb stage) which may become sexually mature. |
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will
Senior Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1830 |
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thanks Ben and Caleb - I'll keep an eye on these, they look pretty healthy at the moment. Bizarre to think of a sexually mature anuran tadpole - can't quite get my head around that!
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